It matters not to Italian opera-goers how high the professional standing of an artist may be, or how great his international renown; if he fail to fulfil their expectations they do not hesitate to hound him down as unmercifully as though he were an assassin or an incendiary, caught in the very act of delinquency. As excitable as they are exacting, they by no means restrict their demonstrations of displeasure to hisses, whistlings, yells, hootings and other more articulate vociferations couched in terms of astonishing vigour. I have seen many a wretched singer, panic-stricken and livid under his paint, pelted off the stage with damaged fruit and vegetable refuse, culled from the market-place during the entr'acte by the vengeful occupants of pit and gallery; and, in cases when the luckless offender has belonged to the softer sex, it is customary in most of our provincial theatres to call her before the curtain ten or a dozen times in succession in order to assail her, over and over again, with storms of hisses and abusive epithets.