A TRANSPORTED AUDIENCE.
Transportation, as a penalty for crime, has been abolished by law: but transportation, by way of amusement, is still carried on, and Mr. Henry Russell—familiarly known as the original "maniac," he having obtained an injunction against a second-hand "maniac" who had infringed a copyright by seeing them "dancing, dancing, dancing, in the hall"—has been causing some of his audience to be literally transported with delight by presenting them with free passages to America. This is all very well, and very liberal, no doubt, but a passage to America may sometimes prove more free than welcome.
We recollect a recent instance of a quiet old gentleman from the country having strolled into a theatre, where he found a "popular vocalist" pumping away at the "Ship on Fire" with all his lungs, and the old gentleman was about to quit the theatre at the end of the performance when he was suddenly seized, dragged on to the stage, exhibited to public view, and loudly cheered as the happy winner of "a free passage to America." To appear ungrateful for a boon which seemed to be thought so enviable was impossible, and the poor old gentleman was obliged to give his name and address on the spot, to enter into arrangements for meeting the ship at Liverpool, and pledge himself to an emigration which would separate him from a capital business, a devoted wife, and an affectionate family. The feelings of that wife and family may be conceived when they found by the next day's paper—received by the early morning mail two hundred miles from London—that the husband and father had so far forgotten the ties of home and kindred as to have become the subject of "a free passage to America." It is true that, after a frightful nightmare, in which he heard a wild chorus of "Cheer, boys, cheer," interrupted by moans of "Ha! 'tis the night watch!" with occasional shrieks of "I am not mad! I am not mad!" he rose with a determination to relinquish his precious prize, and resigned to some more appreciating hands his "free passage to America."