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Show PANTOMIME HAD BAD eECT. London Youth Copied Crimes of Hers of Stage. Aro modern melodramas harmful to uneducated minds? Some of the, old-iJmo old-iJmo pantomimes In Ixmdon provod to bo. In the eighteenth century ono bf tho moat populnr productions, at tho Drury Lnno theater of" those days was a pantomime called "Hnrlcquln Jack Shcppard," which was simply n reproduction of tho crimes of thin populnr young criminal, who was only 23 when ho was hanged. His chief nppoal to tho' popular Imagination was his brilliant escape from Newgate prison with tho fetters on his hands, nnd when ha was mnde tho HUblect of a Christmas, entertainment hundreds flocked to seo It'. It was oven proved that numbers of boy pickpockets who filled the prisons uboul that tlmo had got thoir first Inspiration to Jhlovo from this melodramatic entertainment; and ono boy confessed that he stole in order togcttn the pnntomlmo and hoped some day to, he as clever aa Jack Shnppnnl. |