It is not their fault if the specimens which they are enabled to display in the latter department are very inferior to their splendid exhibitions in the former.
The theatre was closed when we were in Baltimore, but we were told that it was very far from being a popular or fashionable amusement.

We were, indeed, told this every where throughout the country, and the information was generally accompanied by the observation, that the opposition of the clergy was the cause of it.

But I suspect that this is not the principal cause, especially among the men, who, if they were so implicit in their obedience to the clergy, would certainly be more constant in their attendance at the churches; nor would they, moreover, deem the theatre more righteous because an English actor, or a French dancer, performed there; yet on such occasions the theatres overflow.

The cause, I think, is in the character of the people.
I never saw a population so totally divested of gaiety; there is no trace of this feeling from one end of the Union to the other.
They have no fetes, no fairs, no merry makings, no music in the streets, no Punch, no puppet-shows.

If they see a comedy or a farce, they may laugh at it; but they can do very well without it; and the consciousness of the number of cents that must be paid to enter a theatre, I am very sure turns more steps from its door than any religious feeling.