The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-05-26
THE DRAMATIC AIR.
From the Cincinnati Gazette.


The Board of Health has had under con-
sideration the subject of ventilation in the
city prisons. This is proper, for they who
go there have no choice, and it seems cruel
to add the destruction of their health by
poisoned air to their other penalty. But we
venture to say that there is not prison in
the city whose air it not as sweet as noun
tain zepbyrs compared with that of our two
theatres, the National and Woods Either of
these places deserve to be abated as DANCE
rous to the public health. This is no un-
founded contingency; for in the time of the
great Mrs. Siddons, during season at Dublin
in which the theatre was crowded, q verv
fatal epidemic fever broke out which was by
general consent charged to the poisoned air
of the theatre.
The common practice at these two theatres
is to shut the audience mp without any OPEN
ing for the admission of fresh air, to breathe
their own exhalations' over and over. The
gas lights alone would consume the vital pro-
perties of the air in few minutes. Besides
all the repulsive sense of nastiness, physical
prostration is the result of sitting out per-
formance at either of these theatres under
ordinary circumstances. Such hot nights as
we have had during the last week do force
open some of the windows, but this is done
only in such hot weather as makes all resorts
unavailing. But unless the weather is hot,
these cannot be opened because of the cold
draught upon those who sit near them. And
besides, there is no one about these theatres
who attends to this, or makes any use of such
shabby means of relief as they have, or who
thinks he has any concern with the comfort
of the audience. And such windows as they
have are allowed to be barred up or become
impracticable. In cold weather the hot air
from the furnaces is passed in, to be breathed
over by hundreds of persons for hours, and
consumed by hundreds of gas lights, without
any opening for the escape of fo oulness or the
admission of fresh air.
One cause of the low state to which dra-
matte performances have sunk in this city is
in this disregard by the managers of the COM
fort and decency of their theatres. They treat
their audiences as if they were enemies whom
they desired to punish for attending, by
making them as uncomfortable as possible
! People accustomed to comfortable apartments
and decent air will not attend such theatres
except upon some extra attraction, and then
once suffces for a season. If this is skillful
management of theatre, then it is a busi-
| ness that requires none of the intelligence
| that is needed for success in other affairs. It
drives away the respectable part of the COM
munity, and then reduces its performances to
the shabbiest scale upon the plea that the
community does not support respectable
| playing.
If there is any truth in what every decent
| person experiences of the need of fresh air
to life; if there is any truth in what physi-
clans and scientific men tell us of the guam
! tity of fresh air needed to supply the con-
sumption of the lungs, and of the poisonous
| properties of air that has been breathed over
and impregnated with all exhalations from
human bodies, these places are most potent
generators of disease, and ought to be abated
! by the authorities. If the audiences could
see all the nastiness that they are compelled
to breathe over and over at these places,
they would resent the imposition practised
upon them by stopping the performance
until the manager had repaired his insulting
disregard of their decency and comfort
There is not a respectable citizen that has
attended our theatres who will not fully sub
scribe to this as moderate statement of this
imposition. But the complaint has often been
made in the public press, and without avail
And SO it win be in this case. The managers
will say it is an attack on their theatres Per-
haps they will withdraw their advertisements.
Then they will shut up their sinking dens
the tighter, both to show their defiance and
to have satisfaction out of their audiences.
wealthy manager in this city did this once,
and succeeded in keeping an elegant and spa
cious theatre very unwholesome place. But
we are telling them of that which ruins their
business and makes their theatres disrepu-
table, and of thing which can be remedied
to considerable extent by little inexpen-
sive attention, and which, if remeded, will
do more to increase their business than
thousand times the expense or effort directed
in any other line of attraction.