he speech, I pray you, as I
pronounce it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as
many of our players do, I had as lief the town crier spoke my lines. Nor
do not saw the air too much with your hands," says Hamlet; but actors of
the class you meet in the Mogul never seem to have heard of the Prince of
Denmark. There are some people who doubt whether good acting has a
beneficial effect, but there are none who doubt that the effect of bad
acting is altogether bad. But the dramatical part of the entertainment
constitutes but a small part of the evening's amusement. There is a lady
who sings sentimental songs, and a gentleman who sings comic ones, and
another gent, with dismal voice and weary mien, who declares--

"The _gurls_ of dear Old England
Are the _gurls_ of _gurls_ for me-e-eh."

I am not aware that any of these performers sing songs of an
objectionable character; and if a sneer is now and then introduced at
what common decent people believe to be good, and true, and righteous,
and of beneficial tendency, it is only, perhaps, such as would be
approved of by the patrons of the Haymarket. You tell me that this is
better than sitting all night at a bar drinking; but, I ask, is not this
entertainment itself an excuse for drinking? You see the room is full of
men and women evidently belonging to the working classes; now of all men
working men can least afford to waste time in such places. All their
future emphatically depends upon themselves. More than most men are they
called upon to exercise self-denial and to cultivate their powers, if
they would achieve independence. But how can the working men who sit
night after night in such places as the Mogul ever hope to rise? yet any
night there must be a couple of hundred of such present, for they swarm
like bees. They come professedly for the entertainment, but all the
while it lasts they are doing a good deal in the drinking line. It is
not one glass or two that will satisfy them; and the worst of it is, that
many very clever fellows when once they begin drinking do not know when
to leave off. In this respect they are like Dr Johnson, who could either
feast or fast, but could never be a moderate drinker. They come to the
Mogul--perhaps they would never think of sitting all night in a
public-house--but they come to the Mogul for the entertainment, and they
finish by drinking as if they had come for the drink alone. The Mogul is
indeed a