Mr. Stewart is not generally regarded as a liberal man in the metropolis, probably because he refuses to give indiscriminately to those who ask his assistance. Yet he has made munificent donations to objects which have enlisted his sympathy, and has on hand now several schemes for bettering the condition of the working classes, which will continue to exert a beneficent influence upon them long after he has passed away. His friends—and he has many—speak of him as a very kind and liberal man, and seem much attached to him.
Mr. Stewart is now seventy years old, but looks twenty years younger. He is of the medium height, has light brown hair and beard, which are closely trimmed. His features are sharp, well cut, his eye bright, and his general expression calm, thoughtful, and self-reliant. His manner is courteous to all, but reserved and cold except to his intimate friends. He dresses quietly in the style of the day, his habits are simple, and he shuns publicity.
XXXV. PLACES OF AMUSEMENT.
I. THE THEATRES.
There are sixteen theatres in New York usually in full operation. Taking them in their order of location from south to north, they are the Stadt, the Bowery, Niblo’s, Theatre Comique, the Olympic, Lina Edwin’s, the Globe, Wallack’s, Union Square, the Academy of Music, the Fourteenth Street, Booth’s, the Grand Opera House, the Fifth Avenue, the St. James, and Wood’s.
They are open throughout the fall and winter season, are well patronized, and with one or two exceptions are successful in a pecuniary sense. There are usually from 50,000 to 100,000 strangers in the city, and the majority of these find the evenings dull without some amusement to enliven them. Many of them are persons who come for pleasure, and who regard the theatres as one of the most enjoyable of all the sights of the city; but a very large portion are merchants, who are wearied with buying stock, and who really need some pleasant relaxation after the fatigues of the day. To these must be added a large class of citizens who are fond of the drama, and who patronize the theatres liberally. All these, it is stated, expend upon the various amusements of the place about $30,000 per night; and of this sum the larger part goes into the treasury of the theatres. The sum annually expended on amusements is said to be from $7,000,000 to $8,000,000.
The New York theatres richly deserve the liberal patronage
they enjoy. In no other city are such establishments as elegant and commodious, and nowhere else in America are the companies as proficient in their art, or the plays as admirably put upon the stage.
The most beautiful theatre in the city is Booth’s, at the southeast corner of the Sixth avenue and Twenty-third street. It was begun in the summer of 1867, and opened to the public in January, 1869. It is in the Renaissance style of architecture, and stands seventy feet high from the sidewalk to the main cornice, crowning which is a Mansard roof of twenty-four feet. “The theatre proper fronts one hundred and forty-nine feet on Twenty-third street, and is divided into three parts, so combined as to form an almost perfect whole, with arched entrances at either extremity on the side, for the admission of the public, and on the other for another entrance, and the use of actors and those employed in the house. There are three doors on the frontage, devised for securing the most rapid egress of a crowded