THE GALLERY OF THE "VIC."
I lost my hat on the stairs, and in the crush I discovered it in the hands of a mutinous boy, about a dozen steps below me, who threatened if I did not give him a sixpence "to kick the brains hout hof hit." I give the truly amusing boy sixpence and the hat is flung up to me much the worse for wear, while a young girl with a dowdy bonnet and a face swelled with gin asks me in chaff if I am fond of "periwinkles."
The gallery of the Victoria is one of the largest in the world, and will hold, on a modest computation, 2,200 people.
Five minutes after I found myself in the gallery; it was crowded and not a seat could be had, for these people gather at the theatre doors, and fill the surrounding streets and lanes for an hour before the place is advertised to be open.
As I have no seat and look rather out of place, several cheerful young ladies offer to let me sit in their laps, and facetious remarks are made on the different articles of apparel which I have on me. Being a very warm evening, nearly all of the males, men and boys, are in their shirt-sleeves, and it grieves one to think that many of these shirts are sadly in need of washing, and not a few want repairing. The boys and men are hardly seated when they fall into something like the Old Bowery tramp—only that here they all seem to be acquainted with the same slang song, and it is sung by them in a loud, full, and not unmelodious chorus, with a vehemence that shakes the old timbers of the house.
In the well-ordered pit of the Bowery theatre in other days, if I remember right, such truly scandalous conduct would have instantly been suppressed by the strong arm and heavy stinging cane of the brawny fellow who stood with his back to the stage, immediately behind the orchestra; his watchful eyes surveying every rugged face in the pit, and ready with his powerful arm to rain blows like a storm on the shoulders of the brawler.
THE CHORUS OF "IMMENSEKOFF."
I should like to see a man with a brawny arm and cane try the same thing on the audience in the gallery of the "Vic." I am sure he would be thrown over the rail into the lower part of the theatre, particularly if he were to interrupt a chorus. Many of the men and lads, who have their entire week's earnings in their pockets, are very drunk already, though it is only half-past seven o'clock of the Saturday night. The chorus which they are singing is that of a popular street and music-hall song, which every one is now humming in London. They sung it as follows:
"Ha! my dear frens, pray 'ow de doo,
Hi 'opes I sees yer well,
Peer'aps yer don't know 'oo I is;
Well, then, I'm the Heastern swell.
My chambers is in Shoreditch,
And I fancy I'm a Toff;
From top to toe I really think
I looks—Immensekoff.
Immensekoff—Immensekoff,
Behold me a Shoreditch Toff—
A toff, a toff, a Shoreditch Toff,
Hand I thinks myself—Immensekoff."