Not only the health of the body, but the mind and morals, too, are often injured. Dr. Griscom, of New York, in a report on the causes of vice and crime in that city, made a few years since, says; 'Among the causes of vicious excitement in our city, none appear to be so powerful in their nature as theatrical amusements. The number of boys and young men who have become determined thieves, in order to procure the means of introduction to the theatres and circuses, would appal the feelings of every virtuous mind, could the whole truth be laid open before them.
'In the case of the feebler sex, the result is still worse. A relish for the amusements of the theatre, without the means of indulgence, becomes too often a motive for listening to the first suggestion of the seducer, and thus prepares the unfortunate captive of sensuality for the haunts of infamy, and a total destitution of all that is valuable in the mind and character of woman.'
The following fact is worthy of being considered by the friends and patrons of theatres. During the progress of one of the most ferocious revolutions which ever shocked the face of heaven, theatres, in Paris alone, multiplied from six to twenty-five. Now one of two conclusions follow from this: Either the spirit of the times produced the institutions, or the institutions cherished the spirit of the times; and this will certainly prove that they are either the parents of vice or the offspring of it.
The philosopher Plato assures us, that 'plays raise the passions, and prevent the use of them; and of course are dangerous to morality.'
'The seeing of Comedies,' says Aristotle, 'ought to be forbidden to young people, till age and discipline have made them proof against debauchery.'
Tacitus says, 'The German women were guarded against danger, and preserved their purity by having no play-houses among them.'
Even Ovid represents theatrical amusements as a grand source of corruption, and he advised Augustus to suppress them.
The infidel philosopher Rousseau, declared himself to be of opinion, that the theatre is, in all cases, a school of vice. Though he had himself written for the stage, yet, when it was proposed to establish a theatre in the city of Geneva, he wrote against the project with zeal and great force, and expressed the opinion that every friend of pure morals ought to oppose it.
Sir John Hawkins, in his life of Johnson, observes:—'Although it is said of plays that they teach morality, and of the stage that it is the mirror of human life, these assertions are mere declamation, and have no foundation in truth or experience. On the contrary, a play-house, and the regions about it, are the very hot-beds of vice.'
Archbishop Tillotson, after some pointed and forcible reasoning against it, pronounces the play-house to be 'the devil's chapel,' 'a nursery of licentiousness and vice,' and 'a recreation which ought not to be allowed among a civilized, much less a Christian people.'