Perhaps the cast of our political pantomime never was richer than
at this day. We are particularly strong in clowns. At no former
time, we should say, have we had such astonishing tumblers, or
performers so ready to go through the whole of their feats for the
amusement of an admiring throng. Their extreme readiness to
exhibit, indeed, has given rise to some ill-natured reflections; it
having been objected that by exhibiting gratuitously through the
country when the theatre is closed, they reduce themselves to the
level of mountebanks, and thereby tend to degrade the
respectability of the profession. Certainly Grimaldi never did
this sort of thing; and though Brown, King, and Gibson have gone to
the Surrey in vacation time, and Mr. C. J. Smith has ruralised at
Sadler's Wells, we find no theatrical precedent for a general
tumbling through the country, except in the gentleman, name
unknown, who threw summersets on behalf of the late Mr. Richardson,
and who is no authority either, because he had never been on the
regular boards.

But, laying aside this question, which after all is a mere matter
of taste, we may reflect with pride and gratification of heart on
the proficiency of our clowns as exhibited in the season. Night
after night will they twist and tumble about, till two, three, and
four o'clock in the morning; playing the strangest antics, and
giving each other the funniest slaps on the face that can possibly
be imagined, without evincing the smallest tokens of fatigue. The
strange noises, the confusion, the shouting and roaring, amid which
all this is done, too, would put to shame the most turbulent
sixpenny gallery that ever yelled through a boxing-night.