The National Register.
London, England, 1808-03-13 00:00:00

174

THE NATIONAL REGISTER.

eonsideration of the attraction which was likely to be acquired
for their theatre, by the ualocky reports of which Mrs. John-
iton has been the subject. Now it ruay he very well worth the
while of a milliner or a pastry-cook. to engage a girl who does
net understand the rolling either of ribbauds or of paste, if her
beauty he likely to bring custom to the shop ; hut surely the
Proprietors of a London theatre ought not to obtrude a bad
artreo on the public, merely hecau'e she happens to have a
Eirtnnate Loci: and an unfortunate character.
!Mrs. Ileary Johnston docs not act tarly Radaphe at all like
an Earl's datti.iner. She swings her arms, and sharpens her
•oice, in a style .alieh more nearly approaching to `he manner
of a dairy-maid talking as she carries her pails, than to Oat of
a well-hred woman. Nowe a lady who plays thus may he very
like what some women of f.'-.inn are in real life ; hut will never
he at all like what women of fashi,ln oitrht to be upon the stage.

TIM DRAM 1TI( DLTECTOR.
No. IV.

as rgi ctim n?antic, eSt rum :Herelriribus."----tion 4CG.
" A man goes to the play, and finds himself among women of
the Town."

Having spoken iu our last Number of the indecencies which
the proprietors of theatres tolerate upon the stage, we shall
sow sav a word or two of the indecencies which they tolerate
in the front of the house.

These indecencies are now becoming every day more and more
anturious and disgusting. All the refuse of this great town, the
lowest of men, and the most abandoned of women, are admitted
in the ;theatres to interrupt the performatiees, and annoy the
eyes and ears of the revectable part of the audience. From
the bottom to the top of the theatre, with the single exception
of the lower circle of front and side boxes, drunken boys, half
naked women, and the blustering bullies who attend them, riot
in all the security of understood connivance. Formerly those
females whom the -bills of the opera house so demurely
denoted by the phrase " a d-scription more, easily understood
than expressed,- even want to coufine themselves to the upper
tiers, which were called the green boxes : there they remained,
distinguishing themselves frou► modest women in place, as they
were ::Iready distinguished in character. Then vice, to have
been seen, must have been sought—now it obtrudes itself alike
on the attention of those who like, and on the view of those
who abhor it. _ _

The Proprietors, we are folly aware, would, according to
their present system, be considerably itijnred in their profit.
by any additional parity in their manners. But we shall
never he tired of reminding them, that the Patent, which
they have received from the Crown, is but an emanation from
the people, by whom all power i, originally vested in the Crown
itself, and for whose benefit alone the Crown has a right to
exercise or to impart the power it has so received. Shall the
Proprietors of a theatre then urge. in their defence, that they
would lo'e s.► many t:ets of three s►iillings as would amount to a

heavy deduction from their profits ? Their profits, like those of
all other public officer;. ought to 11:- no more than a.reasonable
compensation for their labour; except that they have a right to
reap an additional emolument, a ri sine 7 from the capital employed,
Had forming the profits of their stoc B:It shall it he permitted to
any man to make a profit by open debauchery, and unreservedly
speculate in public vice ? Are the servants of the people de-
serving of their !tire, when they employ their influence for the
people's injury, or are the holders of propert. which is all
only the creature of society, entitled to use that rotten:: for
purposes by which society must sutfer ? Let us not, then, he told
of the patent that the Proprietors hold from the ('row n, or of
the private capital which they'have embarked upon that patent :
they haveduties to perform, both as public patentee: and private
„ merchants, and the people have a right to detnand, that those
tiqies shall be performed. If the Proprietors find, that without
isfdrding conveniences for every denriptioa of people, their
theatres cannot be conducted with profit upon the present terms.
let them hohily make a further advance. ai they did a few year.
• ago, in the prire of admission, and pay themselves for the pre-
servation of public morality by contribution from the public
purse. Hut the fact that no such au Vance is at all necessary.
A theatre, when properly conducts-A, is a most profitable con-
certi; and if good authors and good actor,: were fairly encouraged
there would seldom he a dearth of respectable spectators.
Under the present system of government, at both houses, and
more particularly at Covent-Garden, m here authors have not
fair ens it is quite out of the question to expect large au-