The latter are known also as "posters," and may thus manifest their connection with the early method of "setting up playbills upon posts." Shakespeare's audiences were not supplied with handbills as our present playgoers are; such of them as could read were probably content to derive all the information they needed from the notices affixed to the doors of the theatre, or otherwise publicly exhibited.

Of late years the vendors of playbills, who were wont urgently to pursue every vehicle that seemed to them bound to the theatre, in the hope of disposing of their wares, have greatly diminished in numbers, if they have not wholly disappeared.

Many managers have forbidden altogether the sale of bills outside the doors of their establishments.

The indoor programmes are again divided into two kinds.

To the lower-priced portions of the house an inferior bill is devoted; a folio sheet of thin paper, heavily laden and strongly odorous with printers' ink.