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THEATRES OPERA. 



requirements of a forced hospitality, and consequently it affords all 

 the pleasures of general society without the necessity of expensive 

 entertainment. There are great disadvantages attending upon this 

 constant dwelling in the public eye and in the blaze of artificial 

 light; yet it is so agreeable a mode of killing time in Mexico, that 

 the habits or the nature of the people must change essentially be- 

 fore we may expect to find them surrounding nightly the domestic 

 hearth instead of the dramatic stage. Yet we should not be unjust 

 to the Mexicans in this condemnation of one of their agreeable 

 habits, which originates perhaps as much in their climate as in their 

 tastes. Fine skies and genial atmospheres drive people into the 

 open air. Wintry winds, desolate heaths, ice and snow, gather 

 and group them into the nestling places of home. When houses 

 become in this way mere shelters instead of shrines we might well 

 pardon the taste which leads a sensitive people to enjoy the beauti- 

 ful landscape as long as day permits it to be seen, or to retreat, at 

 nightfall, into those splendid theatres in which they may behold the 

 mimic representation of that varied activity of life to which their 

 monotonous career is a comparative stranger. 



NEW THEATRE. 



Nevertheless, a well-bred Mexican family is one of the most de- 

 lightful circles into which a genteel stranger can be admitted. The 



