The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1850-12-20
From the London Christian Times.

TUE Low THEATRES OF LoNDoN-The nor
NAL schools Of vice and pronigAcy in Londor
are the low theatres, where abandoned actor.
dance the most disgusting ballcts, vitate the
love Of music by comic songs Of the worst ten
lrucy, ana perform dramas, ttrces, and tragedies
which convey to the audience Infamous lessons
in all the crimes that atilct and impoverish so
ccty The persons that attend these penny the
aires are, FIR the most part, the juvenile chill
dren OF the poor, varying between the ages OF
eight and twenty, the great mn ority being boys
unable to read and write. We had often heard
of these acherOntic abodes, but scarcely credi
ted the rumors of even witnesses of these de-
porable performances, till we visited them our
| selves
The first Of these theatres, situated in dis.
trict gorged with vicious population, opened
with comic song, by person who represented
the character Of tipsy beggar-man, raising
rours Of laughter at the expense Of teetotalism
he described the joys Of drunkenness, its indie
pendepce and manlincss, and was Joined in the
chorus by several hundred boys, who formed
eight-tenths of the audience. Another treat was
given 10 abuse the saints, who were represented
rs various "clubs of knaves y while to men of
property, and property itself, was imputed
certainly in very drol manner-the grand
cause of the suferiugs Of the poor. This per-
Torrance was followed by the mos. disgusting
dances: but the play itself was designed to
show. in the instances of hawkcr Of fish and n
countryman in London, how easy it is for youth
to steal to deceive the legal authorities, to ge
an innocent man arrested, while the true cu
rrit decamps to the pawnbroker with the spoil.
In our second attempt to ascertain the ten
dcncy of these performances and the class OF per-
sons by whom they are commonly trequented,
H..
scenery, and the musical performances were in
better taste. This also opened with comic songs
in favor of whoredom, and in ridicule of wives,
families, and husbands. A little boy was then
made to put himself into every attitude that
shocks good sense and the moral feelings and
after the eyhih ton o. female singer, rs often
sively halt-arrnyed rs it was possible to conceive
play WIS acted that exhibited all the treache-
res and shifts of dishonest family, chuckliny
at the toll and privations of the Industrious
poor.
In the third instance, the theatre was n ware
house on the banks of Thames Here we no.
ticed much mrger number of young girls and
sailors, with few persons of color, amounting
altogether to about 400. The great majority,
however, were boys between ten and eighteen
years of age, having every appearance of being
either employed ut some of the low trades in
hawking or mendicancy. Most Of them were
smoking throughout the performance, which
was comedy of the most libidinous description,
followed by tragedy, in which the lesson was
how to commit murder and yet to escape the
galIows interspersed with comic songs illus
trltivc of the frauds and fictions of society, in
which it was represented that the only indepen-
dent person was he who set laws and customs
at defiance, and lived a merry and short life.
Our readers must remember that there are
more than fifty of these dens in the metropolis,
where the performance is repeated two, three
or even four times in the course of the evening,
to a different audience, but always Of the same
character If we admit that these audiences are