Drunken men
are quarrelling in the street, drunken women yell and stagger, and the
hideous discord fills the night on all sides. No item of corruption is
spared the children; and the vile hurly-burly ceases only at midnight.
The children will always try to sneak through the swinging doors of
the gin _inferno_ when the cold becomes too severe; and they will
remain crouched like rats until some capricious guest sends them out
with an oath and a kick. There is not one imaginable horror that does
not become familiar to these children of despair--and they sometimes
have a very good chance of seeing murder. When the last hour comes,
and the father and mother return to their dusky den, the child
crouches anywhere on the floor; undressing is not practised; and, if
any sentimental person will first of all go into a common Board school
in a non-theatrical quarter on a wet afternoon, and if he will then
drive on and pass through a few hundreds of the theatrical children,
his "olfactories" will teach him a lesson which may make him think a
good deal.
Now let me put a question or two in the name of common sense. We must
balance good and evil; and, granting that the theatre has a tendency
to make children light-minded, is it worse than the horror of the
slums and the stench and darkness of the single room where a family
herd together? The youngster who is engaged at the theatre can set off
home at the very latest as soon as the harlequinade is over.
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