Many more years must, I am afraid, elapse
before we get rid of Wych Street. It is full of quaint old Tudor houses,
with tall gables, carved porches, and lattice-casements; but the
picturesque appearance of these tenements compensates but ill for their
being mainly dens of vice and depravity, inhabited by the vilest
offscourings of the enormous city. Next to _Napoli senza sole_, Wych
Street, Drury Lane, is, morally and physically, about the shadiest
street I know.
In Wych Street stands, nevertheless, an oasis in the midst of a desert,
a pretty and commodious little theatre, called the Olympic. The
entertainments here provided have earned, for brilliance and elegance,
so well-deserved a repute, that the Olympic Theatre has become one of
the most favorite resorts of the British aristocracy. The Brahminical
classes appear oblivious of the yellow streak of caste, when they come
hither. On four or five nights in every week during the season, Drury
Lane is rendered well-nigh impassable by splendid equipages which have
conveyed dukes and marquises and members of Parliament to the Olympic.
Frequently, but prior to the lamented death of Prince Albert, you might
observe, if you passed through Wych Street in the forenoon, a little
platform, covered with faded red cloth, and shaded by a dingy, striped
awning, extending from one of the entrance-doors of the Olympic to the
edge of the sidewalk.
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