'I have examined all the theatres in London,' he was saying; 'and pacing
the principal entrances, I have ascertained them to be ridiculously
disproportionate to the requirements of their audiences. The doors
opened the wrong way--I forget at this moment which it is, but have a
note of it at home; they were frequently locked during the performance,
and when the auditorium was literally thronged with English people. You
have probably not had my opportunities of comparing distant lands; but
I can assure you this has been long ago recognized as a mark
of aristocratic government. Do you suppose, in a country really
self-governed, such abuses could exist? Your own intelligence, however
uncultivated, tells you they could not. Take Austria, a country even
possibly more enslaved than England. I have myself conversed with one of
the survivors of the Ring Theatre, and though his colloquial German
was not very good, I succeeded in gathering a pretty clear idea of his
opinion of the case. But, what will perhaps interest you still more,
here is a cutting on the subject from a Vienna newspaper, which I will
now read to you, translating as I go.
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