THEATRE MRS TROLLOPE. 



CHAPTER III. 



Theatre Trollopes Mrs Trollope s Work Custom-house Officer 



Race- course Westhouses Breeding Stud Thunder-storm 

 Return to the Hotel Excursion to Long Island Neiv town 



Flushing Agriculture in the neighbourhood of New York. 



Miss FANNY KEMBLE taking her benefit on the night of 

 our arrival, it was determined that we should visit the Park 

 theatre. We found the house well attended, the ladies greatly 

 outnumbering the gentlemen in the boxes, while the pit con 

 tained males only, apparently belonging to what is known 

 in England by the operative classes, amongst whom people of 

 colour were seen. Having peeped into Mrs Trollope s work 

 on the Domestic Manners of the Americans, and its illus 

 trations of those witnessed at the Cincinnati theatre recurring 

 to memory, I watched the behaviour of the audience. 



At the end of the second act, I observed a gentleman in 

 the second tier of boxes in an indelicate posture in front of 

 the box. Three were similarly situated, at the end of the 

 third act, when several voices in the pit called out, &quot; A 

 Trollope, a Trollope,&quot; and a general hissing and hooting 

 from the same quarter had the effect of inducing the offenders 

 speedily to withdraw. 



This incident at the theatre, amusing in itself, afforded me 

 pleasure, by exhibiting the operatives in the pit enforcing 

 chaste manners on those considering themselves higher in the 

 scale of humanity ; and proving that Mrs Trollope s remarks 

 had not been altogether lost on the Americans. 



The clever, and to some people, amusing work of Mrs 

 Trollope, wiH have different effects from what its admirers in 

 Britain contemplate. The many sketches of low and inci 

 dental character which the book contains, and given as belong 

 ing to the people generally, wounded the feelings of the inha- 



