288 MEXICO. 
cause they find it difficult to spend their time otherwise ; and the young 
for a thousand reasons which the young will most readily understand. 
The boxes are usually let by the month or year, and are, of course, 
the resort of families who fill them in full dress every evening, and use 
them as a receiving-room for the halitu^s of their houses ; although it is 
not so much the custom to visit in the theatre as in Italy. 
The pit is the paradise of bachelors. Its seats are arm-chairs, rented 
by the month, and of course never occupied but by their regular owners. 
The stage is large, and the scenery well painted; but the whole per- 
formance becomes rather a sort of mere repetition than acting, as the 
" comicos" invariably follow the words, uttered in quite a loud tone by 
a prompter, who sits in front beneath the stage with his head only 
partially concealed by a wooden hood. A constant reliance on this 
person, greatly impairs the dramatic effect, and makes the whole little 
better than bad reading ; but I was glad to perceive that the actors of 
Nuevo Mexico had evidently studied their parts, and really performed the 
characters of the best dramas of the Spanish school. 
I cannot but think this habitual domestication at the theatre, is injurious 
to the habits of the Mexicans. It makes their women live too much abroad, 
and cultivates a love of admiration. The dull, dawdling morning at home, 
is succeeded by an evening drive ; and that, again, by the customary seat 
at the Opera or Play-house, where they listen to repetitions of the same 
pieces, flirt with the same cavaliers, or play the graceful with their 
fans. If the entertainments were of a highly intellectual character, or 
a development of the loftier passions of the soul, (as in the master-pieces 
of our English school,) there would be some excuse for an indulgence 
of this national taste ; but the disposition of the audiences is chiefly 
directed, either toward comedy, or to a vapid melodrama in the most 
prurient style of the modern French. Love and murder, — crime and 
wickedness, — have converted the stage into a dramatic Newgate, where 
sentimental felons and beautiful females, whose morality is as question- 
able as the color of their cheeks, are made by turns to excite our wonder 
and disgust. 
MEXICAN ROGUERY. 
When giving you an account, the other day, of Mexican prisons and 
prisoners, I forgot to relate some anecdotes that are told in the Capital of 
the adroitness of native thievery. 
Some time since, an English gentleman was quietly sauntering along 
the Portales — the rnost crowded thoroughfare of Mexico — his attention 
