LADIES IN SPANISH AMERICAN THEATRES.

New Zealand Times, Volume LI, Issue 8965, 16 April 1890, Page 6

LADIES IN SPANISH AMERICAN THEATRES.

Marcus A. Mayer, the well known theatrical agent, who managed Patti while she was on her lost trip to South America, in a letter to a friend from Montevideo says ; ‘ The girls hero are the loveliest I ever saw. There is one part of the house where they only allow ladies. This is the ‘ cazuela.' It is the circle just below the gallery, ‘ paraiso,’ and one of the male sex is not allowed there, and ladies.are not allowed to wear bonnets in the cazuela. The front row is reserved and we charge 6dols for these scats. The back rows are for the admission tickets to the cazuela, and for these we get Idol SOconto. At about 5 o’clock the young ladies commence congregating at the door, and there they stand until 7 o’clock and keep np such a clatter and row that the police often compel us to open the doors and let them in at 6.30. You should see the scramble! They are worse than men or boys. They take the seats back of the front row, and those who are lucky get a seat, while the unfortunate damsels are compelled to stand up. This place will hold about eight hundred women, and it is a beautiful sight to look up at them, in all the colours of the rainbow—beautiful brunettes, all bedecked in diamonds. At the close of the performance a platoon of soldiers—fifty men —forms on each sido of the door at the exit to the streets and keeps the crowd back, so that the young ladies can depart in peace, and as they go they are met by their brothers or fathers or some 1 escort to see them home..’