Sometimes the dear creatures went for a stroll in the Mall, there to meet the English coxcombs with French manners, or else they paid a few visits.
"Thus they take a sip of tea, then for a draught or two of scandal to digest it, next let it be ratafia, or any other favourite liquor, scandal must be the after draught to make it sit easy on their stomach, till the half hour's past, and they have disburthen'd themselves of their secrets, and take coach for some other place to collect new matter for defamation."[A] [Footnote A: Thomas Brown.] Drury Lane must have presented an animated but none the less disorderly scene any evening during the season when a popular play was to be given.

Women in the boxes talking away for dear life, beaux walking about the house, chattering, ogling and laughing, or even sitting on the stage while the performance was in progress,[A] and the orange girls running around to sell their wares and, not infrequently, their own souls as well.
[Footnote A: Owing in great part to the efforts of Queen Anne, this wretched custom of allowing a few spectators to sit on the stage was practically abolished before the close of the reign.] "Now turn, and see where loaden with her freight, A damsel stands, and orange-wench is hight; See! how her charge hangs dangling by the rim, See! how the balls blush o'er the basket-brim; But little those she minds, the cunning belle Has other fish to fry, and other fruit to sell; See! how she whispers yonder youthful peer, See! how he smiles and lends a greedy ear.
At length 'tis done, the note o'er orange wrapt Has reach'd the box, and lays in lady's lap." These lines by Nicholas Rowe form a graphic but unsavoury picture of the demoralisation to be found in an early eighteenth century audience.

Affairs were much better than they used to be in the _laissez-faire_ Restoration period, but, as may be imagined, there was still room for improvement.

The rake, the cynic and the loosely-moraled women were still abroad in the land (have we quite done with them even yet ?), and many a hard struggle would take place before the artificial restraint and decorum of the Georgian era would triumph over the mocking spirit of Charles Stuart and his professional idlers.

In the meantime, as Shadwell relates, the rakes "live as much by their wits as ever; and to avoid the clinking dun of a boxkeeper, at the end of one act they sneak to the opposite side 'till the end of another; then call the boxkeeper saucy rascal, ridicule the poet, laugh at the actors, march to the opera, and spunge away the rest of the evening." And he goes on to say that "the women of the town take their places in the pit with their wonted assurance.