Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/382

372[March 20, 1869] whole, though kicked and abused, simply because they are harmless, inoffensive, and weak, and do not retaliate on the ruffians who maltreat them, as would any one else, they are an industrious people who, if they do not become citizens, yet do not interfere in any way in politics, and in proportion to their numbers, give less trouble to the law than any one else, and are therefore deserving of every encouragement.

TO THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN. .

for some distance in a north-easterly direction, Your Commissioner was landed at the door of a very large public-house. The stucco of this building had a greasy appearance; but the paint of its doors was worn in a manner suggestive of much friction, and a number of thirsty idlers were hanging about before it. The place looked as little like the entrance of a theatre as might be, and indeed was merely the ante-chamber or vestibule to a theatre. The wicket-gate leading to the temple of the drama was a little beyond the main building, and was approached by a dim court. A narrow passage, not so clean as it might be, led from the entrance gate into another court, larger and dimmer than the first. A platform for dancing—on which, on this occasion, the rain stood in pools—occupied this festive space, and, as well as the eye could make out in the darkness, it was surrounded by arbours or boxes for the consumption of refreshment. Beset by visions of acute rheumatism and chronic bronchitis, Your Commissioner hurried over the watery waste, and found himself in the stalls of the Dramatic Temple of the Bird of Jove.

It should be observed of the stalls at this theatre, that they are in every respect unlike the stalls at the theatres previously visited. There are not many of them; they are not reserved; they are cheap; they are not comfortable. Their occupants are, likewise, eminently unlike the occupants of the stalls in the West. In the West, Your Commissioner, laughing aloud at the witticisms of the clown, or what not, was concerned to find at least fifty elegant persons gazing at him with looks of surprise, not unmixed with horror. In the East, suspicious glances are cast upon him who remains unmoved by what is passing on the stage, and ominous whispers may reach him referring darkly to "pride" and "swells." In the stalls at the West, the only remark made by an occupant of a stall, in any way relating to the proceedings on the stage, which reached Your Commissioner's ears, proceeded from a gentleman, young but used up, who occupied the next seat. This individual was accompanied by a friend, who might have been his twin brother. They were both faultlessly dressed; their white ties were of precisely the same form and size; the flowers in their button-holes might have grown on the same stalk; their shirts were of the same pattern; each youth's collar stood up round his neck, and drooped under his chin, as if the starch had run short, at precisely the same angles. There was no difference in the parting of their hair; their foreheads sloped in unison. All that these young bucks could find to say, touching the entertainments in progress, was said at a critical moment of the pantomime, when the greater part of the audience was in a state of hilarity. The remarks were not otherwise brilliant than as signs of life in objects apparently inanimate. One used-up twin said, glancing with a contemptuous expression at your appreciative Commissioner: "Doosid stoopid all this;" the other used-up twin friend replying "Yas," the conversation dropped.

In the East, things were different. Remarks flew about freely all the evening. They were in general commendatory, but if any one had a low opinion of what was being done for his amusement, he had no hesitation in expressing himself, without reserve.

The theatre was crowded—so crowded that when the performance flagged a little—and it did flag a little sometimes—the audience struggled a good deal to get more room. But, when matters mended on the stage, or when the symphony of a popular song was struck up, the public, after a cry of expectant joy, settled down in strict