Note 19 — JOURNAL. (continued 2)
Reading edition
It is fortunate for the managers of the Park Theatre, and very unfortunate for the citizens of New York, that the audiences who frequent that place of entertainment are chiefly composed of the strangers who are constantly passing in vast numbers through this city. It is not worth the while of the management to pay a good company, when an indifferent one answers their purpose quite as well: the system upon which theatrical speculations are conducted in this country is, having one or two "stars" for the principal characters, and nine or ten sticks for all the rest. The consequence is, that a play is never decently acted, and at such times as stars are scarce, the houses are very deservedly empty. The terrestrial audiences suffer much by this mode of getting up plays; but the celestial performers, the stars propped upon sticks, infinitely more.