Page:Mexico as it was and as it is.djvu/369

 they find it difficult to spend their time otherwise; and the young for a thousand reasons which the young will most readily understand.

The boxes are usually let by the month or year, and are, of course, the resort of families who fill them in full dress every evening, and use them as a receiving-room for the habitués of their houses; although it is not so much the custom to visit in the theatre as in Italy.

The pit is the paradise of bachelors. Its seats are arm-chairs, rented by the month, and of course never occupied but by their regular owners. The stage is large, and the scenery well painted; but the whole performance becomes rather a sort of mere repetition than acting, as the "comicos" invariably follow the words, uttered in quite a loud tone by a prompter, who sits in front beneath the stage with his head only partially concealed by a wooden hood. A constant reliance on this person, greatly impairs the dramatic effect, and makes the whole little better than bad reading; but I was glad to perceive that the actors of Nuevo Mexico had evidently studied their parts, and really performed the characters of the best dramas of the Spanish school.

I cannot but think this habitual domestication at the theatre, is injurious to the habits of the Mexicans. It makes their women live too much abroad, and cultivates a love of admiration. The dull, dawdling morning at home, is succeeded by an evening drive; and that, again, by the customary seat at the Opera or Play-house, where they listen to repetitions of the same pieces, flirt with the same cavaliers, or play the graceful with their fans. If the entertainments were of a highly intellectual character, or a development of the loftier passions of the soul, (as in the master-pieces of our English school,) there would be some excuse for an indulgence of this national taste; but the disposition of the audiences is chiefly directed, either toward comedy, or to a vapid melodrama in the most prurient style of the modern French. Love and murder,—crime and wickedness,—have converted the stage into a dramatic Newgate, where sentimental felons and beautiful females, whose morality is as questionable as the color of their cheeks, are made by turns to excite our wonder and disgust.

When giving you an account, the other day, of Mexican prisons and prisoners, I forgot to relate some anecdotes that are told in the Capital of the adroitness of native thievery.

Some time since, an English gentleman was quietly sauntering along the Portales—the most crowded thoroughfare of Mexico—his attention