Year: 1879

An Heur At the Play.


Correspondence Of the Mospsr County Trunscstpt.


I went to Booths. Waiting for the
curtain to be rung up I looked over the
magnificent amphitheatre, rapidly filling
up with all sorts of people, and / said {:
From the twenty-five cent gallery down
through the fifty cent family circle and
the seventy five cent balcony and the DOL
lar parquet to the twenty dollar boxes,
there must be thousand or two Of Us
here; what are We all here for, anyway
To be instructed! No. To have our
esthetic tastes cultivated! Not to any
great extent. With the philanthropic


motive Of helping these actors to live ,
Hardly. To relieve our plethoric purses
or troublesome trade dollars! Not much.
To be amused! Yes. That Is it. With
the exception of the usual number Of
dead beats who are here chiefly because
it is sort Of free lunch to them, and q
half:dozen Representatives Of the press"
who are here to find fault or sound the
pean Of praise according as tho manager
and the actors wine them or shun them
perhaps this is little too sweeping
We are al here to be amused. Surely, I
thought. this does not look like hard
times. But 1t Is . mistake to suppose
that only the prosperous indulge in the
luxury of amusement. It is rather the
contrary. Certainly the prosperous and
|easygoing people have less need of It,
1t is an odd fact that theatres are never
80 we'll patronized as when people are
shadowed by some great calamity or dis
tress. During the slege of PARIS the
theatres of that city were thronged, and
the same was true in New York and
other American cities during the darkest
days of our civil war. What is the ex.
PLANTATION of this seeming anomaly :!


Doubtless it is because humanity, to use
slang phrase in a different sense, can
not stand constant grief. The human
heart oppressed with care, seeks relief as
naturally as the steam in the tea-kettle
whistles itself out at the spout, and if it
does not find relief something will happen
very like what would happen to the tea
kettle if the nozzle were stopped up and
the lid fastened down and the hre kept a
roaring under it: it would burst. Pres.
ident Lincoln went to the theatre to e.
cape for an hour from the lo4d of a
nations cares lest they drive him mad ;
and there have been "unco' good" people
who said that if he had not been in such q


wicked place he would not have been
killed. Perhaps not, and if he had been


by nature half as narrow and blgoted as
these his critics he would never have
been preslden: to conduct his people
safely through their most stormy period,
with charity for all. with malice toward
none." 1t is only week or two since q
reverend revivalist in q New England
town, in charging his flock to keep out
Of the theatre and the ballroom, said that
his warning was directed only to his
christian friends, because as regards un-
believers it reslly matters very little
whether they 60 down to hell by way Of
the theatre and the ball room or by some
other road, since. whatever road they take,
they are sure to arrive at the same desti-
nation. And still people seem to go to
the theatre. The merchant on the verge
of bankruptcy seeks in the garlsh light
of the theatre to escape the shadow that
haunts him day aud night; the undetec-
ted defaulter rusbes to the play to forget
the crime that every moment threatens to
pull him down to infamy: the pampered
fops and the sated butterflies of Murray
Hill come here to get rid of the ennui of
idleness; the tired mechanic who has
toiled through the week in his dingy
work shop, cogitatlng bitterly, perhaps,
on the hard difference between capital
and labor, comes to the play 10 contem-
plate for an hour the mimic joy to which


he is a stranger; and the hatless newsboy
and the shoeless bootblack put up their
last i've cents, and only convertible
wealth, at the door of the Grand Duke
Opera House in Baxter street, in order to


forget In the thrilling adventures of Jack


Sheppard, that they had no dinner to-day.
Brother Talmage comes to these wicked
places to see how wicked they are, and
Anthony Comstock, Of the society for the
prevention of cruelty to morality, comes
to inspect the ballet girls stockings and


see that they are of the regulation length
and have no Turing holes in them. But
most people 60 to the theatre to be anus.


ed, and I think it is true that most of
them need to be amused. The everyday


life Of the masses Is not 80 pleasant, 30
full rounded and satisfying that they feel


the need of no change, nothing different


and more agreeable. On the contrary it
ID question whether the life of the mass
of the people In this or any other coun-
try is worth the living, 80 far as they are
concerned, indeed the opinion has been
avowed BY one Of the ripest scholars and


deepest thinkers of our day, that the life
of the masses is no boon to them. And


the less of boon it becomes the greater


necessity for escaping from 1t for an hour


or two once in while, in order that .
permanent escape through the waters of


the "dark.dowing rlver'' may moi be RASH


ly sought as happy release. People re-
quire amusement and will have it; it ls 4
safetyvalve to the overworked, it brings a
smile to faces too much accustomed to the
wrinkles Of care, and smile Is the rain.


bow of the human heart, infinitely more


beautiful than any God ever set in the
vault Of heaven. It 10 . pity that the
amnaemenfa offored IN the manila aro mt