The regular theaters are a long way beyond those in America. I dislike to acknowledge this, but candor and fairness compels it. I cannot tell a lie, even for national pride. My hatchet is bright--it has never been used much. The London theaters will not compare with those of any of the large American cities in point of size, or convenience of access. They are generally situated in out of the way places, and the halls and entrances are as shabby as anything can be, but when you are once in nothing can be more delightful. There is a softness in the appointments, a perfection in the furnishing, a good taste generally that America has not. We are splendid, but it must be confessed, rather garish and loud. The character of the performances excels the style of the theaters. Their pieces are put upon the stage with an attention to detail, and with a strength of cast which we at home never see, even in the best. [Sidenote: THE LONDON THEATERS.] I witnessed a piece at the St. James, the time of which was the First Charles. In a drawing-room scene musical instruments [Illustration: ST. THOMAS HOSPITAL AND HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT.] were necessary. In America it would have been nothing singular had a Chickering piano been used, and a parlor set in reps. Imagine the delight of seeing a drawing-room furnished with furniture of the period, with an old harpsichord, such as the ladies of the time used, with the ancient zittern, and the gorgeous harp, with the chairs and couches precisely as they were in the country house of the time. The costumes were not mere guess work--they were designed and constructed by a professional costumer, who made studies from pictures, and put upon the stage men and women of King Charles' day. This was a delight, in and of itself, that paid one for his time and expenditure, even if he cared nothing for the play. And then the acting. If there is any one thing in the way of amusements that is utterly and fiendishly detestable, it is the acting of the usual child. The mother or father who trains the ten year old phenomenon to play children's parts, takes it as far away from childhood as he can possibly, and the child does not play a child at all. He does, or tries to do, _Hamlet_, in children's clothes. But nothing of the sort is permitted in London. The child plays the child, and does it as it should be done. It was a comfort to see two children on the floor in one scene, playing at the game of "See-saw, Margery Daw," and doing it exactly as children would do in real life, instead of mouthing the lines like an old-style actor in "Macbeth." And all the way down there was the same perfection in the acting as in the setting of the piece. There was not one star and twenty "sticks," as is the rule over the water, but the servant who merely said, "My lord, the carriage waits," did that bit just as well as the hero or heroine of the piece.