entertainments in their morning
costumes; but this ought not to include the sweeps. It is not a
week ago since a lady in a nice white gown sat down on the very
spot which a nasty sweep had just quitted, and, when she got up,
the sight was most horrible, for she was a very heavy lady and
had laughed a good deal during the performance; but it was no
laughing matter to her when she got home. I hope I have said
quite enough, and am your

"WELL-WISHER."

"R.W. Elliston, Esq."

No doubt some reform followed upon this urgent complaint.

Regulations as to dress are peculiar to our Italian opera-houses, are
unknown, as Mr. Sutherland Edwards writes in his "History of the
Opera," "even in St. Petersburg and Moscow, where, as the theatres are
directed by the Imperial Government, one might expect to find a more
despotic code of laws in force than in a country like England. When an
Englishman goes to a morning or evening concert, he does not present
himself in the attire of a scavenger, and there is no reason for
supposing that he would appear in any unbecoming garb if liberty of
dress were permitted to him at the opera.... If the check-takers are
empowered to inspect and decide as to the propriety of the cut and
colour of clothes, why should they not also be allowed to examine the
texture? On the same principle, too, the cleanliness of opera-goers
ought to be inquired into. No one whose hair is not properly brushed
should be permitted to enter the stalls, and visitors to the pit
should be compelled to show their nails."

There have been, from time to time, protests, unavailing however,
against the tyranny of the opera-managers. In his "Seven Years of the
King's Theatre" (1828), Mr. Ebers publishes the remonstrance of a
gentleman refused admission to the opera on the score of his imperfect
costume, much to his amazement; "for," he writes, "I was dressed in a
superfine blue coat with gold buttons, white waistcoat, fashionable
tight drab pantaloons, white silk stockings and dress shoes, _all worn
but once, a few days before, at a dress concert, at the Crown and
Anchor Tavern_." He proceeds to express his indignation at the idea of
the manager presuming to enact sumptuary laws without the intervention
of the Legislature, and adds threats of legal proceedings and an
appeal to a British jury. "I have mixed," he continues, "too much in
genteel society not to know that black breeches, or