It is said that the audiences give the tone to the stage, and that a moral and cultured public would purify the drama. The audiences of the Restoration period did not certainly perform their part towards effecting such a consummation. Their behaviour in the playhouse has often been noted. They showed plainly that low jests and coarse allusions were to their taste and what they expected, and they would have scoffed at or yawned over more decorous language. If the piece were not to their liking they treated the performers with scant ceremony, and hissed and pelted them. Such demonstrations were the more frequent owing to the custom of caricaturing living persons. The actresses, when not playing, moved about in the front rows of the auditorium among their admirers. Then, again, the occupants of the pit would make audible comments on the ladies sitting in the boxes, who did not disdain to retort, greatly to the amusement of the rest of the house. The theatre was the rallying point for adventurers and libertines of both sexes, and served many purposes besides its legitimate one of entertainment. In the eighteenth century, when the custom of toasting ladies prevailed, plays were given “for the entertainment of the new Toasts and several Ladies of Quality.” This always brought a crowded audience. The auditorium was frequently the scene of quarrels, and the custom of allowing spectators to stand about on the stage was the cause of much disorder. On one occasion, in 1721, a regular fray occurred, owing to the presence of some tipsy noblemen; and the king, George I., gave orders that thenceforth a guard of soldiers should protect the actors during the performance. One could not expect in that age to find any regard paid to the sentiments of women, and omissions made from the plays lest their susceptibilities should be wounded. Yet this was done in one instance certainly,[60] and the passage left out was not one of peculiar coarseness, but one which vaunted man’s superiority over woman. Those were not the days of equal rights between men and women, and there could hardly have been many women who would have been offended at the claims of the male sex to supremacy. Dr. Trusler, writing of the eighteenth century, says-- “Many of our comedies are improper for a young lady to be seen at; as, indeed, there are few English comedies that a modest girl can see without hurting her delicacy.” The attentions of the audience to a popular actress were a little overwhelming at times. A knot of admirers would gather round the door of a lady’s dressing-room, and insist upon escorting her home. As late as the middle of the century the manners of the gallery were so rough that it was no uncommon thing for an orange to be flung at a lady in court dress.