The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-08-28


/ as he could within the law He introduced
the ballet and other entertainments of semi
1 dramatic character. The theatrical lesse,,s
sued him at law for encroaching on their pri-
vilcges, but the Alhambra won the day; and
| lately a Parliamentary committee has been
sitting to determine whether music halls and
theatres should not be placed upon an equal
| footing. As ] observed in previous article
If this be done the play-going public will in
all probability be better served.
The man of fashion, therefore, in London
goes only to one place of public amusement
the Italian opera. This institution has also
undergone revolution during the second
quarter of the present century.
! Those who have had sufficient curiosity to
I read the fashionable novel which Walter Scott
| drove from its pedestal, and which Dickens
| has buried in oblivion, must have remarked
| that the opera is there always spoken of with
a kind of awe, second only to that which is
excited by the name of Almack's. The nabob
who came from India with a bran new for
tune, the country cousin who aspired to
| fashionable life, the young lady who had just
come out, are represented as looking forward
| with trembling heart to their first night
| at the opera For in those days the opera
was scarcely open to the public; admission
| could only be procured by vouchers; the en-
| tertainment was monOpolzed by subscribers
and their personal friends. There were
no cheap seats; the gallery was reserved for
servants, If an outsider" to use a vulgar
but expressive word, ventured within those
sacred precincts, he felt as if he had entered
private house without an invitation.
Everybody seemed to know everybody else:
the crush room was rout: the private boxes
''received.'
But gradually the middle class rose into life
class enriched by the Peninsular war, resem-
bling the ''shoddy" aristocracy, which is now
infesting the hotels of Paris; Almack's fell,
and the opera followed its example-as far as
the exclusives were concerned.
1t is still the fashion to subscribe, to be sure,
and all persons of quality go to the opera, ex-
cept the ladies in the set of the devOut
Lord Shaftesbury. But the rigors of price
and OF the toilet have been relaxed. In the
amphltheatre stalls you may have a
good seat for half a guinea, and go
dressed as you please; and the gallery is
only half crown. The opera is much better
than it used to be-that is to say, the orches-
ira is better, the mise en- scene is infinitely
better, the accommodations are better, the
programme of the season is richer and more
varied. If we have no one equal to Alboni
Catalani, Rubini, and Lablache, that is the
accident of age; but the best singers in Europe
are engaged, and the Italian opera in London
is, without comparison, the best in the world.
The new system of the opera has undoubt-
edly been OF service to civilization; it has
spread taste for music among clerks and
shopkeepers' wives, who first went to the
opera to see the lords and ladies in the boxes,
and who remain to be enchanted with Rossini
and Mozart. The music halls, in humber
way, have probably done something of the
same kind. The working man who used for
merly to 60 to his club in the tavern pa.lor
and tuddle himself over beer and politics, now
takes his wife and children to these places of
entertainment, which degrade the taste of the
playgoer, but which are at all events superior
to the pothouse.
The amusements of the lowest classes are of
a similar kind. They have their theatres and
their music halls, which are cheaper, and the
companies of which are composed usually of
the superannuated and the novice. The lowest
form of theatre is the penny gq6, where half
pence are thrown instead of bouquets, on the
stage and where it is not uncommon for the
leading gentleman to resent some pleasantly
from the pit by offering to 'have it out" with
his critic upon the stage. The Ratcliffe High
way is a street in the neighborhood of White
chapel, devoted to amusement. 1t is trequented
almost exclusively by sailors, and rivals the
celebrated streets of the same kind which are
among the sights of Rotterdam and Hamburg.
Almost every house is dancing or singing
saloon; and after a south wind has filed the
ports, the scene is sufficiently remarkable to
| be witnessed once.
There is one event, and only one, which
with one another on terms of equality, and on
neutral ground. The Derby Day resembles
| the Saturnalia of the Romans, and the French
| Carnival. 1t is day devoted to the most
| absolute license, and to the widest Inirth
| The road from London to the Epson Downs
is literally mass of moving vehicles. The
| tinker IN his spring-cart casts a critical eve
| upon the duke who passes him driving four
| in hand, and makes caustic remarks upon
his equipage or his attire. His grace or his
friends condescendingly rejoin, and penny
hour-bags are sportively exchanged. All dis
tinctions are levelled: the only person who
can drive to the Derby without being
"chated" is the heir-apparent to the throne
de is regarded rather as something to be
looked at with curiosity, like the horses in the
Paddock; and frequently on the course an in
dlvidual in the humber walks of life will
leave his friends and stroll towards the grand
stand, announcing that he's ',just going to
have squint at Wales"
Unjust be acknowledged that the working
men who go to the Derby do not display the
menastlc virtues" which Lord Houghton has
politely ascribed to them; their buffoonery is of
the grossest description; so much so that it is
impossible to take a lady to the Derby. Their
pleasantrles, too, are without geniality: they
are marked by excessive bitterness. Mr. Tom
hughes, who in a letter to the Tribune ac-
counted Tor the frequency of colliery explo-
9IoIs py the TACT that miners are generally
WHhout vote, would no doubt assert that
their oeIects are to be attributed to the same
cause But these are really the defects of the
EnSllsn character, English finn and Enolisb