the lads, in our day, for the
news-boys' stamps.

"Ranting is out of the female line, but Bowery actresses have a
substitute for it.

"At the proper moment, they draw themselves up in a rigid statue, they
flash their big eyes, they dash about wildly their dishevelled hair, with
out-stretched arms and protruding chins they then shriek out,
V-i-l-l-a-i-n!

"O, Fannie Herring! what a tumult you have stirred up in the roused pit!
No help for it, my dear lady. See, there's 'Horace,' standing on his
seat and swinging his big blue cap in a cloud of other caps--encore!
encore! And the pretty actress bows to the pit, and there is more joy in
her heart from the yells of those skinny little throats than from all the
flowers that ladies and gents from above may pelt her with.

"The bill of fare for an evening's entertainment at the Old Bowery is as
long as your cane, and the last piece takes us far into the night--yet
the big house sits it out, and the little ones sleep it out, and the
tired actor well earns his pay.

"I'll not criticise the acting--a great part of the community thinks it's
beyond the pale of criticism--this peculiarity of tearing things to
pieces, and tossing around 'supes' promiscuously.

"And another thing, those little ungodly imps down there have a great
appreciation of virtue and pathos. They dash their dirty fists into
their peepers at the childish treble of a little Eva--and they cheer, O,
so lustily, when Chastity sets her heavy foot upon the villain's heart
and points her sharp sword at his rascal throat. They are very fickle in
their bestowal of approbation, and their little fires die out or swell
into a hot volcano according to the vehemence of the actor. 'Wake me up
when Kirby dies,' said a veteran little denizen of the pit to his
companions, and he laid down on the bench to snooze.

"'Mind yer eye, Porgie,' said his companion, before Porgie had got a
dozen winks. 'I think ther's somthen goen to bust now.' Porgie's friend
had a keen scent for sensation.

"As I came out, at the end of the performance, I again saw 'Horace.' He
had just rescued a 'butt' from a watery grave in the gutter. 'Jeminy!
don't chaps about town smoke 'em awful short now'days!' was the
observation of the young philosopher.

"The theatre is almost the only amusement that the ragged newsboy has,
apart from those of the senses. The Newsboys' Lodging House, which has
been the agent of so much good among this negle