tching
their own clumsy originals. Equally admirable was the acting for case,
gaiety, and power. At the pathetic parts the audience wept freely, as my
friend had said. There was no shame or reserve. One old fellow, with a
cropped head and great grizzled beard, was quite inconsolable. He mopped
his face with a red cotton handkerchief, and sobbed as if his heart
would break. The severe moral of the piece seemed to displease certain
ladies in beautiful bonnets, who murmured disapprobation. The satire
conveyed by the piquant "chink chink" was overcharged; but the honest
_bourgeoisie_ drowned all discontent with obstreperous applause. They
had no doubt whatever that _Lais_ was quite as bad as she was
represented.

Before the audience had well dried their tears by a promenade in the
_foyer_, they were all laughing themselves into fits over a comic
piece--which certainly was very funny--about the children of Albion. A
party of French pleasure-seekers find themselves in the full-flavoured
and highly-coloured atmosphere of London, and enter an hotel kept by a
lady in a straw hat and Highland kilt. (The fashions of dear old England
have, apparently, varied somewhat since the wanderer left her shores.)
To every demand for victual or drink made by the famished travellers,
the short-petticoated lady replies that it is impossible, _parceque
c'est Sonday._ And the whole party come forward to sing in the pleasant
manner of French vaudevilles, _"C'est Sonday, Sonday, Sonday"_ &c. and
make everybody laugh very much. Certainly it was a perfectly good
natured joke, and after they had lashed themselves in the drama we could
not complain of being tickled in the farce.

A nice old gentleman who occupied the next stall to the Tourist, and
availed himself of Monsieur's lorgnette, asked whether we love to
ridicule Frenchmen in a like manner on our stage; and, being answered in
the negative, seemed disposed to congratulate himself that his
countrymen were free from ridiculous customs, follies and vices.

"Pardon, my dear Sir: behold all the difference. Your writers are
spiritual and ingenious, but they want one thing--conscientiousness.
They care little for truth and justice if they can only say a good
thing. The piece which has diverted us both so much supposes an audience
as ignorant of us and of our manners as if we were Tartars or Japanese.
A sketch so coarse and unfaithful could not be presented to even the
least instructed play-goers of