3-034-697 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Scene from "Apple Blossoms," at the Vaudeville Theatre: the Great Baggs lecturing, 1871. London stage show. 'Much controversy has prevailed whether or not the Great Baggs should continue to take part in "Apple-Blossoms." Evidently written for Mr. Thomas Thorne, it was doubtless introduced into the play with not overmuch relation to the general plot; nevertheless, its conception was a genuine character, and one well recognised among the profession of entertainers, which in these days has acquired undue prominence. In the scene before us the irrepressible quack is lecturing at the inn before Captain Penryn (Mr. William Farren), Mrs. Page (Mr. T. Lavis), Bob Prout (Mr. David James), and others, on Phrenology and Platonism, with no qualifications, beyond his impudence, to undertake the task. Such as it is, however, his lecture does give some information, and furnishes occasion for some wit and humour. His place in the play is now, at any rate, established, and adds another to Mr. Thorne's repertory of dramatic portraits'. The pseudoscience of phrenology (or craniology) - long discredited - involved the measurement of bumps on the skull to 'predict' mental traits. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.