The Sun.
London, England, 1864-12-27 00:00:00

CRYSTAL PALACE.

The Crystal Palace still distances all competitors for
popular favour by the number, novelty, and variety of its
Christmas amusements; and with a preference that may
be regarded as instinctive, and a confidence in the genius
and resources of the management that the lapse of each
year only tends the more to strengthen, the holiday folk
yesterday bestowed their patronage upon its attractions
with a lavishness that has not often been equalled and sel-
dom surpassed. A mere enumeration of the entertainments
provided for this festive season would of itself make a greater
demand upon our space than we should find it convenient to
satisfy, the reader must therefore be content with a simple
glance at the more noticeable features, accompanied by
the assurance that a visit to Sydenham during the present
week cannot fail to impart the highest gratification.
As usual, at Christmas, the palace is plentifully decorated
with flags, banners, and devices in evergreens; ever green
quotations also, principally from Shakspere, appropriate
and inappropriate to the festival, interspersed with welcome
and happy greetings, strike the eye in all directions ; and
everywhere the symptoms are unequivocal that the spirit
of mirth is in the ascendant. Tho whole length of nave,
except where it is broken by the transept, has been devoted
to a fancy fair, where a busy traffic is conducted in an
exhaustless variety of articles suitable as ornaments or
presents. This proves a great attraction to the juveniles,
who gather round the stalls in thick clusters and invest
largely of their available capital in the treasures so
temptingly displayed to view. In the estimation of many
the great Christmas tree at the north end of the nave,
reaching from roof to roof, will be a sight long
worthy to be retained in the memory, and its brilliant ap-
pearance when lighted up is calculated to form a conspi-
cuous object in the pleasant dreams of childhood. Christ-
mas is a period of the year when the manager feels that he
has an unquestioned right to introduce any description of
amusement that will afford the greatest amount of enjoy-
ment. Ia this respect he may boast of practically carry-
ing out " the greatest-happiness-of-the-greatest-number"
theory. Accordingly ho imports the most celebrated per-
formers as gymnasts, clowns, tumblers, rope dancers,
contortionists, comic singers, and pantomimists. Thus
we have Herr 'Willie as the "Flexible Gnome," a very
clever contortionist, who puts himself in the most ludi-
crous and unnatural postures with an ease and
facility truly marvellous. Then Jean Bond, from
far off Australia, goes through a series of interesting tricks
with his wonderful dog Prince, a sagacious and agile crea-
ture in whom instinct seems nearly allied to reason. A
seance a la Davenport is also given by the Brothers Nemo
as the Japanese clowns; but judging from the reception
they met with yesterday, which was by no means a flatter-
ing one, it may be concluded that the British public have
had pretty well enough of this entertainment; that the
humbug is exploded, and that the act of tying and
untying knots in a cabinet is anywhere looked upon as
aught mysterious or occupying the agency of spirits, it
is only among the classes who arrogate to themselves a
monopoly of the refinement and education of the age. It
is a pity, however, that the Brothers Nemo did not get the
credit they certainly deserved for the skill and dexterity
with which they accomplished their task when bound by
ropes and enclosed in the cabinet, not in a darkened room,
but in the open face of day. Jackson Hainee, the cham-
pion American skater, performed some beautiful evolutions
on his drawing-room skates. A most amusing scene, too,
that in which the Brothers Osman appeared as clowns, and
introduced Silvester as the charmed monster, who exe-
cuted some most extraordinary feats in tumbling.
The two Ellistras followed with their trapeze perform-
ance. Thorn, the Parisian grotesque, astonished the
audience by his curious antics, Barnes, the champion
vaulter, threw the orthodox "sixty summersaults." Anc
the entertainments concluded with a pantomimic ballet from
the pen of Mr Nelsen Lee, who also acted as master of the
ceremonies. The palace was brilliantly and effectively
illuminated in the evening; and the promenade, which
always ensues previously to the c mpany breaking up, was
enlivened by the strains of the great organ, at which Mr
Coward presided, and executed a selection of favourite airs.
We may add, in a postscript, that Edmond's menagerie has
been brought down to the immediate neighbourhood of the
palace, and that access is obtained to it from the north-west
transept in the Sydenham road.