abes clap
their tiny hands, and tears of laughter chase each other down the
withered cheeks of age. This night in every theatre of London is a
similar scene witnessed. The British public is supposed to be unusually
weak at Christmas, and tricks that were childish and stale when George
the Third was king, and jokes venerable even in Joe Miller's time, are
still supposed to afford the most uproarious amusement to a people
boasting its Christianity, its civilisation, and enlightenment. Of all
conventionalisms those of the stage are the most rigid, antiquated, and
absurd.

But the thousands outside who did not get in--what are they about? Look
at that respectable mechanic; you saw him in the morning as happy as a
prince, and almost as fine; he stands leaning against the lamp-post,
apparently an idiot. His hat is broken--his coat is torn--his face is
bloody--his pockets are empty; not a friend is near, and he is far away
from home. It is clear too what he has been about. Come on a few steps
further--three policemen are carrying a woman to Bow-street. A hooting
crowd follow; she heeds them not, nor cares she that she has lost her
bonnet--that her hair streams loosely in the wind--that her gown (it is
her Sunday one) is all torn to tatters--or that her person is rudely
exposed. The further we go, and the later it grows, the more of these
sad pictures shall we see. Of course we do not look for such in
Regent-street, or Belgravia, or Oxford-street, or the Strand. Probably
in them we shall meet respectable people staggering along under the
influence of drink--but they are not noisy or obstreperous--they do not
curse and swear--they do not require the aid of the police. We must go
into the low neighbourhoods--into St Giles', or Drury-lane, or
Ratcliffe-highway, or the New-cut, or Whitechapel--if we would see the
miseries of London on Boxing night. We must take our stand by some
gin-palace. We must stay there till the crowds it has absorbed and
poisoned are turned loose and maddened into the streets. Then what
horrible scenes are realized. Here an Irish faction meet, and men,
women, and children engage in a general _melee_, and cries of murder rend
the air, and piercing shrieks vex the dull ear of night. There two mates
are stripped and fighting, who but this morning were bosom friends, and
who to-morrow would not harm a hair of each other's heads. Here a
mechanic with a bloody head is being borne to the neighbour