But these need not be so gifted:  the proprietor of the Victoria Theatre supplies the deficiency:  the dramatic edition of Old-Bailey experience he is bringing out on each successive Monday, will soon be complete; and when it is, juvenile Jack Sheppards and incipient Turpins may complete their education at the moderate charge of sixpence per week.  The “intellectualization of the people” must not be neglected:  the gallery of the Victoria invites to its instructive benches the young, whose wicked parents have neglected their education—­the ignorant, who know nothing of the science of highway robbery, or the more delicate operations of picking pockets.  National education is the sole aim of the sole lessee—­money is no object; but errand-boys and apprentices must take their Monday night’s lessons, even if they rob the till.  By this means an endless chain of subjects will be woven, of which the Victoria itself supplies the links; the “Newgate Calendar” will never be exhausted, and the cause of morality and melodrama continue to run a triumphant career!

The leaf of the “Newgate Calendar” torn out last Monday for the delectation and instruction of the Victoria audience, was the “Life and Death of James Dawson,” a gentleman rebel, who was very properly hanged in 1746.

The arrangement of incidents in this piece was evidently an appeal to the ingenuity of the audience—­our own penetration failed, however, in unravelling the plot.  There was a drunken, gaming, dissipated student of St. John’s, Cambridge—­a friend in a slouched hat and an immense pair of jack-boots, and a lady who delicately invites her lover (the hero) “to a private interview and a cold collation.”  There is something about a five-hundred-pound note and a gambling-table—­a heavy throw of the dice, and a heavier speech on the vices of gaming, by a likeness of the portrait of Dr. Dilworth that adorns the spelling-books.  The hero rushes off in a state of distraction, and is followed by the jack-boots in pursuit; the enormous strides of which leave the pursued but little chance, though he has got a good start.

At another time two gentlemen appear in kilts, who pass their time in a long dialogue, the purport of which we were unable to catch, for they were conversing in stage-Scotch.  A man then comes forward bearing a clever resemblance to the figure-head of a snuff-shop, and after a few words with about a dozen companions, the entire body proceed to fight a battle; which is immediately done behind the scenes, by four pistols, a crash, and the double-drummer, whose combined efforts present us with a representation of—­as the bills kindly inform us—­the “Battle of Culloden!” The hero is taken prisoner; but the villain is shot, and his jack-boots are cut off in their prime.

James Dawson is not despatched so quickly; he takes a great deal of dying,—­the whole of the third act being occupied by that inevitable operation.  Newgate—­a “stock” scene at this theatre—­an execution, a lady in black and a state of derangement, a muffled drum, and a “view of Kennington Common,” terminate the life of “James Dawson,” who, we had the consolation to observe, from the apathy of the audience, will not be put to the trouble of dying for more than half-a-dozen nights longer.