As the audience _en bloc_ remain seated, so the length of the performance must be taken into account by managers; and commonly two hours and a half is considered the maximum length to which a performance should run, though I must say that we have at times sinned by keeping our audiences seated until eleven o’clock, and it has been even later. Of course in this branch of the subject must be also considered the difficulty of reaching their homes experienced by audiences in cities whose liberal arrangements of space, and absence of cheap cabs, renders necessary a due regard to time. In matter of duration, however, the audience is not to be trifled with or imposed on. I have heard of a case in a city of Colorado where the manager of a travelling company, on the last night of an engagement, in order to catch a through train, hurried the ordinary performance of his play into an hour and a half. When next the company were coming to the city they were met _en route_, some fifty miles out, by the sheriff, who warned them to pass on by some other way, as their coming was awaited by a large section of the able-bodied male population armed with shot guns. The company did not, I am informed, on that occasion visit the city. I may here mention that in America the dramatic season lasts about eight months—from the beginning of the “fall” in September till the hot weather commences in April. During this period the theatres are kept busy, as there are performances on the evenings of every week day, and in the South and West on Sunday evening also, whilst matinées are given every Saturday, and in a large number of cases every Wednesday. In certain places even the afternoon of Sunday sees a performance. It is a fact, somewhat amusing at first, that in nearly all towns of comparatively minor importance the theatre is known as the Opera House.