Eureka Reporter | 1906-03-09 | Page 7 | Pantomime Had Bad Effect

PANTOMIME HAD BAD london youth cop ed cr mes of here of stage are modern melodramas harmful to uneducated some of the old time pantomimes in london proved to be in the eighteenth century one of the most popular productions at the drury lane theater of those days was a pantomime called harlequin jack sheppard which simply a reproduction of the crimes of thia popular oung criminal who was only 23 when he was hanged his chief appeal to the popular imagination was his bril lant escape from newgate prison with the fetters on his hands and when he was made the subject ot a christmas entertainment hundreds flocked to see it it was even proved that numbers of boy pickpockets who filled the prisons about that time had got their first inspiration to thieve from this melodramatic entertainment aid one boy confessed that he stole in order to get to the pantomime and hoped some day to be as clever as jack sheppard