use is formed. Our new acquaintances are
not talkative, and we are not sorry when our turn comes to enter the
dirty hole set apart for the entertainment of the Shoreditch youth. We
climb up a primitive staircase, and find ourselves in a gallery of the
rudest description, a privilege for which we have to pay a penny extra.
Here we have an ample view of the stage and the pit, the latter chiefly
filled with boys, very dirty, and full of fun, with the usual proportion
of mothers with excited babies. The performance commences with a
panorama of American scenery, with some very stale American criticisms,
about the man who was so tall that he had to go up a ladder to shave
himself, and so on; all, however, exciting much mirth amongst the
youthful and apple-eating audience. Then a young lady, with very short
petticoats and very thick ancles, dances, and takes all hearts by storm.
To her succeeds one who sings about true love, but not in a manner which
the Shoreditch youthdom affects. Then a fool comes upon the stage, and
keeps the pit in a roar, especially when he directs his wit to the three
musicians who form the orchestra, and says ironically to one of them,
"You could not drink a quartern of gin, could you?" and the way in which
the allusion was received evidently implied that the enlightened but
juvenile audience around me evidently had a very low opinion of a man who
could not toss off his quartern of gin. Then we had the everlasting
niggers, with the bones, and curiously-wrought long coats, and doubtful
dialect, and perpetual laughter, which the excited pit copiously
rewarded. One boy tossed a button on the stage, another a copper, and
another an apple; and so pleasing was this liberality to the supposed
young men of African descent, that they did not think it beneath them, or
inconsistent with their dignity as professionals, to encourage it in
every possible way. And well they might. Those gay blacks very likely
had little white faces at home dependent on the liberality of the house
for next day's crust. But the treat of the evening was a screaming
farce, in one act, in which the old tale of "Taming the Shrew" was set
forth in the most approved Shoreditch fashion. A husband comes upon the
stage, whose wife--I would not be ungallant, but conscientious regard to
truth compels me sorrowfully to declare--is an unmitigated shrew. She
lords it over her husband as no good woman ever did or wishes to do. The
poor man