This year has been a great one for America in London. The Exhibition in West Kensington, with its Wild West Show, has attracted its thousands, and at this moment two dramas (both from the United States) are very popular in the Strand and Oxford Street. A few nights ago, anxious to save you the trouble of filling a stall with your customary urbanity and critical acumen (to say nothing of your august person and opera-glasses), I visited the Princess's, to assist at a performance of _The Shadows of a Great City_. It was really a most amusing piece, written by JEFFERSON, the _Rip Van Winkle_ of our youth, who you will remember was wont in years gone by to drink to the health of ourselves and our wives and our families at the Adelphi. The _City_ was New York, and the most substantial of the _Shadows_, Mr. J. H. BARNES, a gentleman who might be aptly described as one of the "heaviest" of our light comedians. He played a fine-hearted sailor with an earnestness of purpose that carried all before it. I cannot conscientiously say that he gave me the idea that he was exactly fitted to take command of the Channel Fleet, but after seeing him I retained the impression that he would have felt entirely at home on the quarter-deck of a Thames Steamboat. Mr. HARRY NICHOLLS, who has so often assisted to make the fortune (as a jocular scoundrel) of a Drury Lane melodrama, was also in the cast, and so was Miss CICELY RICHARDS, _the Belinda_ of _Our Boys_. Then there was Miss MARY RORKE, a most sympathetic heroine, and several other excellent performers, whose names, however, were less familiar to me. The play, admirably mounted with capital scenery, recalled a number of pleasant memories. Here was a suggestion of _The Ticket of Leave Man_, there a notion from _The Colleen Bawn_, and yonder ideas from _The Long Strike_ and _Arrah-na-Pogue_. There is nothing new under the sun, and _The Shadows of a Great City_ is no exception to the rule. However, it is a thoroughly exciting play, full of murder and mirth, wrong-doing and waggery, startling incidents, and side-splitting comicalities. It was certainly greatly enjoyed, when I saw it, by the audience, who cheered Mr. BARNES and Miss RORKE to the echo, and hissed all their enemies to their heart's content, as a reward for the most effectively-simulated villany. Very soon all the Theatres will be busy with the Autumn-cum-Winter Season. The first on the List is Drury Lane, which, reserving PAYNE for the Pantomime at Christmas, opens in September with _Pleasure_. Always yours sincerely, ONE WHO HAS GONE TO PIECES. * * * * * SALUBRITIES ABROAD.