By way of variety, we have been visiting Astley's ;
which since it has been rebuilt by Mr. BATTY is the most airy theatre in the Metro- polis—a great advantage in this sultry weather notwithstanding the sawdust of the arena and the gunpowder smoke of the Chinese War, its atmosphere was neither unpleasant nor oppressively hot. The house, to be sure, was not very well filled; for the entertainments, the horse- manship excepted, are of a kind now becoming obsolete ; and the prices have not been lowered to meet the competition of the Surrey and Vic- toria. The Chinese War is a martial spectacle, that would have been popular in the days when Boney was a bugbear and the war-mania con- verted every house into an United Service Club of amateur soldiers and sailors : now the old claptraps scarcely got "a hand." The stationary quality of the dramatist's invention may be inferred from a slight circumstance. Three Frenchmen to one Englishman used to be the customary allowance ; but, though Chinamen were now the enemy, still there were only three "teapots " opposed to one British tar: five would have beeu few enough—but three!
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