Nasby in Exile

ly the people who drink are, as a rule, those who need and will have amusement. Havi

entirely to dramatic or operatic representations, and several hundred p

heaters will not compare with those of any of the large American cities in point of size, or convenience of access. They are generally situated in out of the way places, and the halls and entrances are as shabby as anything can be, but

Their pieces are put upon the stage with an attention to detail, and

NDON T

e time of which was the First Charles. I

ITAL AND HOUSES

as the ladies of the time used, with the ancient zittern, and the gorgeous harp, with the chairs and couches precisely as they were in the country house of the time. The costumes were not mere guess work-they were designed and constructed

t as far away from childhood as he can possibly, and the child does not play a child at all. He does, or tries to do, Hamlet, in children's clothes. But nothing of the sort is permitted in London. The child plays the child, and does it as it sho

ere was not one star and twenty "sticks," as is the rule over the water, but the servant who merely

f a man, and wants what he has done well

does not differ materially from its brother in America. It is singular that the stock attraction at the variety theater is the negro minstrel act. Minstrelsy originated in America forty

ed coat, and striped trowsers, and sing negro songs. The rich, mellow accent of the American African, the rollicking humor, the funny grotesqueness, all that is want

ce is more highly flavored generally. Magic and athletic performances are greatly in favor, a

mass, the only division being the prices in different parts of the house. And here, as everywhere, drinking goes on incessantly and forever. Waiters move about through the audience, taking orders for bev

agements at three and even four theaters. He sings one song and responds to three encores, then throwing himsel

IDEA OF A

ience would endure them for a minute, are the most popular. They sing them in extravagant evening costumes, in the most doleful and melancholy way, and call themselves "comiques

OF A VARI

ch wear and tear upon the mind, and as all the performances are of the alleged humorous order there is abundant room for chaff and talk of

s estimation; a rat pit is satisfactory in default of anything more bloody; a cock-fight will answer as an a

d a "sporting public," on whose tables in the parlor you shall always find the flash and sporting papers of the metropolis, and the walls

. They are the broad-jawed, soap-locked, sturdy brutes, of the Bill Sykes type, beer-bloated and gin-

plucky, tenacious brutes who will die rather tha

when one dog gets the shoulder or jaw of the other in his iron jaws, and holds it there, while the other literally eats him up. Then wagers are laid as to which will hold out the longest, and every movement is watched with the keenest solicitude

AND

ge sums of money are hazarded upon their performances. The aristocratic dog fanci

hich are largely attended, but the variety theater, or music hall, as it is called, is the stock amusement of the Londoner

ooden figures manipulated by a man inside of a box, knocking each other on the head, with squeaks and idiotic dialogue, every day up to his twenty-first year, would naturally pass it by ever afterward, but it is not so. I have seen venerable men, who were doubtless bank presidents or clergymen, or something

hrieks of Judy with an expression on her face of enjoyment. That is all there is of it, and all there ever has been. And singular as it may seem, it is the first amusement of an English b

lourishes in all its native ferocity, the grinders being, as over the water, Italian noblemen with their wives. And they are just as dirty and grimy here as there. The mixed brass

AGIC

L NUIS

o doubt as to the fact of the four shillings being in the purse. Then the fakir offers to sell the purse to the countryman for sixpence, which, were the shillings actually inside, would certainly be a bargain. The countryman pays

ge of human nature, and hard work necessary to the successful prosecution of this little swindle would make him rich, with half the wear and tear. But such men would rather work a day to swindle somebody out of s

all it. The helpless family, worried to the very verge of madness, throw them sixpence, and they move on. They stand and play till they get their sixpence. The race is not as it was in Jem Bagg's day. He played the clarionet. "Ven the man tosses me a sixpence," was his remark, an

orkscrew overtoors," or they are satisfied with less money. A sixpence mov

umes an ecstatic expression, and they wonder why he doesn't order them to "move on," but he doesn't. It amuses him, and they play, till, lost in amazement at his powerful

HO WAS MU