The Englishman is a very thorough sort of a man, and wants what he has done well, according to his notion of what well is. The places of amusement, other than the regular theaters, are of as great variety as they are vast in number. The prevailing attraction is, of course, the regular variety theater, which does not differ materially from its brother in America. It is singular that the stock attraction at the variety theater is the negro minstrel act. Minstrelsy originated in America forty years ago, but it has as firm a hold upon England as it has upon America, and a trifle firmer. No programme is complete without it, and no part of the performances are so heartily enjoyed. But their minstrelsy would drive an American negro crazy. It is sufficient for a London audience to have a performer black his face and hands, and put on a long-tailed coat, and striped trowsers, and sing negro songs. The rich, mellow accent of the American African, the rollicking humor, the funny grotesqueness, all that is wanting. At any music hall you shall hear the songs popular in America sung by a cockney with all the cockney peculiarities of speech, even to the misplacing of the h's. The leg business is even more common and more indecent than in America, and variety performance is more highly flavored generally. Magic and athletic performances are greatly in favor, albeit fine vocalism and instrumental performance of a very high character must be interspersed. These variety performances are attended by all classes. The respectable mechanic and his family, the professional man and his family, the thief, pickpocket, and prostitute, are all mingled in one common mass, the only division being the prices in different parts of the house. And here, as everywhere, drinking goes on incessantly and forever. Waiters move about through the audience, taking orders for beverages, and men and women drink and guzzle, and men smoke during the entire performance. No matter what else stops, the flow of beer never does. It is very like Time in this particular, constantly moving. The life of a variety actor is a very busy one after eight at night. If he has any popularity at all he has engagements at three and even four theaters. He sings one song and responds to three _encores_, then throwing himself into a cab he is driven to another and to another, the time of his appearance at each being fixed to a minute. [Sidenote: AN ENGLISH IDEA OF A GOOD TIME.] Singular as it may seem, the wretches who sing the most idiotic songs, of the "champagne Charley" kind, compositions so utterly and entirely stupid that one wonders that any audience would endure them for a minute, are the most popular. They sing them in extravagant evening costumes, in the most doleful and melancholy way, and call themselves "comiques." One of them, probably the nearest approach to an idiot of any man on the English stage, makes from two hundred to three hundred dollars a week, and is in demand all the time.