The police of the theatres performed their duty conscientiously, and the statutes were obeyed.  The necessity of being accompanied by an adult was felt to be a strange restraint by these gamins eager for the theatre, whose attractions led them to abandon school, work, and family, and to procure the money for their admission by stealing it from their parents, or at a pinch from strangers; and where they would mingle, between the acts, with pick-pockets and low characters who encouraged them in the ways of vice.  And for a stronger reason, the child was more carefully protected against the perils of the stage than against those of the auditory.  Juvenile performances were forbidden, and the youthful performers were excluded successively from the Columbia Opera House or Theatre des Folies, from the Italian Opera, from the Gem Theatre, from Parker’s American Theatre, and from the Juvenile Opera.  Permissions for individual performances were peremptorily refused even to parents who were actors.  Here the work of the society encountered serious obstacles, and it is necessary to quote from Mr. Elbridge T. Gerry in order to appreciate the motives by which the society was actuated in combating with vigorous purpose the opposition which it met with:  “The Press, which is influenced to a considerable extent by the representations of theatrical managers, often criticises severely any attempt to deprive the public of what it is pleased to call its legitimate amusements, by the suppression of such entertainments.  And many pronounced patrons of the dramatic art even maintain that such exhibitions are indispensable to the proper development of a dramatic education, and that when the necessities of the parents require it, charity should encourage the children to procure this means of obtaining a livelihood.  But let us examine the other side of the question.  When the curtain rises in the theatre, a draught of warm air rushes from the audience on to the stage, and often paralyzes for some moments the vocal chords of the actors.  When the curtain falls, the cold air comes down from the flies, and the children, who have become over heated by their physical exertions, shiver to the marrow before they are able to accustom themselves to this sudden change of temperature.  Every night these things are renewed.  During the day the children sleep as best they can.  Their nervous system is rapidly undermined; their digestion becomes impaired.  It is rare that one can point to instances of children arriving early at positions of eminence in the dramatic art.  It is true that there are a few who shine as stars in the theatrical profession, and who entered upon their dramatic career in early childhood; but these are rare exceptions.”

It is not only on the stage that the morals of the children have been protected; the keepers of low resorts have been prosecuted by the society.