Tony Pastor’s Opera House

“Extremes meet. While listening to the comic vocalism of Tony Pastor, the singing of ‘Nicodemus Johnson’ by Johnny Allen, and witnessing the terpsichorean movements of the corps de ballet at Tony Pastor’s Opera House, on the evening of the 17^th, our ears were at the same time regaled with divine worship taking place in a Mehthodist meeting, only one door above the Opera House. The evening being pleasant, the windows of both establishments were thrown open, so that while Tony was singing about the ballet girls, the preacher man was praying, and while Jonny Allen was singing ‘Nicodemus Johnson,’ the brethren and sisters next door were trying to drown ‘Nicodemus,’ with ‘New Jerusalem.’ The attendance at both places was very large, the hall of religion being well filled with both sexes, while the Opera House was likewise crowded with saints and sinners.”