The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-18 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OP THE SUN.

Sru,--I have only just seen your paper of Saturday, con-
' taining a notice of my first appearance at the Theatre des
VariettSs. Allow me, in the first place, to thank you
heartily for all the kind and flattering things you say, and
say so pleasantly, of me, and next to correct the impres-
sion you are evidently under that I was not only treated
with injustice on the first night by the Parisian public,
but that there was actually an organised opposition to my
performance. Now, let me beg of you at once to dis•-
miss this idea from. your mind. There was neither
cabal nor organised opposition of any kind, and the
fault, such as it was, was entirely my own, and not
that of the audience. I believe they came with every
intention to be pleased, as it met with a most cordial recep-
tion, and two-thirds of the piece went with shouts of laugh-
ter and every sign of good humour ; but the latter portion
was not to their taste—it dragged, and I soon discovered
that they were getting bored. But it was not any one "
natured fellow in the pit." The necessity for explanation at
the end of every piece, according to our English ideas of
dramatic propriety—the seeing everybody married and set-
tled, and all the obscure points of the plot mathe-
matically cleared up before dropping the curtain—
is .not only not required by the French public,
but is deemed tiresome ; they like to drop the cur-
tain when the fun is over, and guess the rest ; and
certain signs, which had nothing to do with me, but with
the piece only, showed me that they had had enough, and
were getting out of patience at the long winding-up. I
repeat, the fault was mine, and not theirs; and had one of
their own favourite actors played the part I believe he would
have been treated in the same way. " 111-will "I am sure
there was none; for when, in the midst of their discontent,
I said suddenly to the old man of the piece, " Come, come,
for goodness sake make haste- and marry the young
people ; can't you see that the public is getting impatient ?"
the apropos speech was received with the greatest good
humour, and was followed by a tremendous salvo of applause.
On the vacond night, after wholesale cutting, which the
manager had advised previous to the first performance, but
to which I objected, having played the piece " Cool as a
Cucumber" so often successfully in London--an obstinacy
for which I paid the penalty—it went off from beginning
to end with what actors call "one roar," and I am play-
ing it nightly to "overflowing and enthusiastic audiences."
There is a procession every morning to the box office, and,
in short, I may venture to say that I am---poetically speak-
ing the—" talk of Paris."

I hope you will make the amende honorable to the Pari-
sian public by publishing these facts. I have every rea-
son to be delighted with the perfect success of my expe-
riment. I have received nothing but compliments and
kindnesses from actors, authors, managers, public, every-
body ; and the criticisms in the newspapers are all so flat-
tering and cordial that I cannot resist sending you them as
vouchers for the truth of my statement. lam receiving an
excellent salary, and as my engagement at the Haymarket
prevents my remaining here beyond the end of the month,
I am invited to return after Christmas, when a comedy
will be written by a French author expressly for me.—
Again thanking you for your exceedingly kind notice, I am,
sir, yours, &c., C. J. MATHEWS.
Paris, Sept. IG.

OUR FUSTIAN CUTTERS.—The vicious custom of
o play-days" at the beginning of the week, exposes
these children to be shockingly overworked at the end—
being sometimes unrelieved for thirty hours at a time. Four.,
teen hours, including meals, is a fearful daily task for young
girls and boys ; and in this business the work occasions
deformity and lameness, whether the hours are in excess or
not. It is probably the greatest event in the lives of the
seventeen thousand young workers in these trades, that
the discovery has been made in their time of the fitness of
combining education of the mind with the labour of the
hands, and of the completeness of each when the two are
combined. As much learning can be gained in three hours
as in six, and as much pay may be, or soon will be, earned
on the whole by those who go to school as when they never
left their work. "Half 'time and education is a grand
thing I " as the workman said ; and any of us who can in
any way aid in getting Parliament to extend the benefits of
the Factory Act to these hard-worked children, will surely
try their utmost, after seeing what their case is, and what
it might be. An effort in any degree proportionate to the
value of the object is sure of success.— !, 7? ce ct TPek.