o young--none too old to be there at the rise of the
curtain. The suckling infant 'mewling and puking in its mother's arms.'
The youngster rubbing his sleepy eyes. The timid Miss, half frightened
with the great mob and longing for the fairy world to be created. Elder
boys and elder sisters. Mothers, fathers, and the wrinkled old
grand-sire. Many of these men sit in their shirt-sleeves, sweating in
the humid atmosphere. Women are giving suck to fat infants.
Blue-shirted sailors encircle their black-eyed Susans, with brawny arms
(they make no 'bones' of showing their honest love in this democratic
temple of Thespis). Division street milliners, black-eyed, rosy-cheeked,
and flashy dressed sit close to their jealous-eyed lovers. Little Jew
boys, with glossy ringlets and beady black eyes, with teeth and noses
like their fat mammas and avaricious-looking papas, are yawning
everywhere. Then there is a great crowd of roughs, prentice boys and
pale, German tailors--the latter with their legs uncrossed for a
relaxation. Emaciated German and Italian barbers, you know them from
their dirty linen, their clean-shaven cheeks and their locks redolent
with bear's grease.

"Through this mass, wandering from pit to gallery, go the red-shirted
peanut-venders, and almost every jaw in the vast concern is crushing
nut-shells. You fancy you hear it in the lulls of the play like a low
unbroken growl.

"In the boxes sit some very handsome females--rather loudly dressed,--but
beauty will beam and flash from any setting.

"Lean over the balcony, and behold in the depths below the famous pit,
now crowded by that gang of little outlaws we parted with a short time
ago.

"Of old times--of a bygone age--is this institution. In no other theatre
in the whole town is that choice spot yielded to the unwashed. But this
is the 'Bowery,' and those squally little spectators so busy scratching
their close-mown polls, so vigorously pummeling each other, so
unmercifully rattaned by despotic ushers--they are its best patrons.

"And are they not, in their light, great critics, too? Don't they know
when to laugh, when to blubber, and when to applaud, and don't they know
when to _hiss_, though! What a _fiat_ is their withering hiss! What
poor actor dare brave it? It has gone deep, deep into many a poor
player's heart and crushed him forever.

"The royal road to a news-boy's heart is to rant in style.

"Versatile Eddy and vigorous Boniface are