The Sun.
London, England, 1862-04-15 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, APRIL 15, 1862.

that the more the cultivated and pure, those whose
tastes and instincts required wholesome food, ab-
stained from the theatre, the more subject it would
be to those evil influences which sorely tempted
the actor to lower his teaching to the standard that
he found would please. (Loud applause.) The
actor was subject to the most sudden variations
of fortune, as all men must be who were more or
less dependent on the fluctuating fashions of public
taste, and he was dependent more than any other
man on his personality. His duties could not be
performed by deputy. A dramatic representation
was so complicated a piece of machinery that the
absence of even the smallest wheel might destroy
the whole structure; if he could stand and speak,
act he must. He must leave the bedside of the sick
wife, the dying child, assume the dress and manner
of ease and wealth with an aching heart and an
empty cupboard. (Hear, hear.) Other men
went through trials as severe of their kind, but
there was something in the contrast between the
real and the counterfeit life of the actor which in
the hour of suffering was peculiarly ghastly.
(Hear, hear.) The rewards of the successful
actor were immediate, brilliant, and intoxicating,
but they were as fleeting as they were brilliant,
and the wave of a single generation was enough to
wash away his shallow footsteps on the sands of time.
(Applause.) Even for the most prosperous actor
there was ever the peril of failing health, which
might at any moment stop the most brilliant career.
But there was another class on whom the accident
that prevented the continuance of their exertions
fell with a paralysing weight—that numerous class
as necessary to the full development of the drama as
the brightest stars, who had cheerfully accepted and
worthily sustained their humble professional posi-
tion. However prudently managed, their incomes
afforded little hope of expansion, while the necessi-
ties and the various claims of life increased in undue
proportion. To these how often anxious thought for
the future occurred their ill-spared contributions to
this fund bore honourable testimony. The Chair-
man made a very earnest -nd feeling appeal for as-
sistance to all who felt that their debt of gratitude
to the actor had not been discharged by the price
paid for their seats, and in conclusion, gave two in-
stances of the benefits afforded by this fund. A
gentleman, young, of promising ability, with a
young wife dependent on him and his professional
earnings for existence, in one instant, by the falling
of a stage platform on which he was standing, be-
came a cripple for life, utterly incapable of further
professional exertion. The other, a young lady, with
no husband to support and protect her, after a few
months of failing sight, became totally blind.
Neither of their subscriptions had at the time of
their calamity exceeded £2O, and they were each of
them in the receipt of an annuity from that fund of
£6O (elem.. (Applause.)
Mr. BIICKSTONE responded, and after passing a
high personal eulogium on the chairman, went
on to say—The objects of the General Theatrical
Fund are now so well known that it is only ne-
cessary for me to state that it receives members
from every theatre in the kingdom when they
1 have been before the public for a certain number
of years, and that when prevented by age, acci-
dent, or infirmity from fulfilling their duties,
they become annuitants. When these annuities
are granted it is not considered as an
act of charity, or as given to persons who have
never in any way prepared for old age, but as an
act of justice to those who have been provident,
and who claim such annuities as their right ; and,
as I have subscribed to this fund for 23 years, when
I become old and infirm—(laughter)—should I need
my annuity I shall not hesitate to claim it—(cheers)
though I hope I shall not only never need it, but
never become old and infirm. (Laughter.) The
number of our subscribing members is 170. We
have 17 annuitants, to whom, during the year, we
have given more than £7OO ; and our capital, when
this night is over, will not be far short of £13,000.
Our fund is now firmly established, and I hope I
may be allowed to assure you it is one of the most
flourishing and, best managed institutions in the
country. (Cheers.) I have also to inform you, gen,
tlemen, that during the past year we have received
a legacy of £2lO left to us by Lady Morgan—once,
as many of you may know, a distinguished writer,
and the daughter of a theatrical manager. It is
to be hoped that her ladyship's kind recollection of
tke art she followed in her youth may act as an
example to many other wealthylovers of the drama,
and if some of them, who for 30 or 40 years have
visited the theatre, and enjoyed during that time
their hundreds of hearty laughs at some of our
comedians, and perhaps tragedians, were only to
remember our fund at the rate of a halfpenny a
laugh it would produce a very acceptable sum.
Gentlemen, I am sorry to alarm you with the intel-
ligence that I was fearful we should not have met
here in this banqueting hall to-night—in plain
words, that we should have had no dinner to-day,
as our excellent Lord Chamberlain has given per-
mission that all the theatres may be open this
week, except on Friday. To be sure some of the
clergy have striven with might and main to make
his lordship reverse his decision, and so deprive
about 5,000 or 6,000 poor men, women, and chil-
dren of their daily bread—(hear)—and when there
was no sensible necessity for it ; but lam happy to
say his lordship has stood firmly against this forty-
parson-power pressure. (Laughter and cheers.) Still
if the Haymarket had been opened this evening,
the treasurer of our fund could not have been
here; the secretary might have been missing, and
you would have found yourselves short of stewards
to remind you of your donations. However, long
before his lordship's permission to open in Passion-
week was sent to the Haymarket manager he had
I decided to employ that time in cleansing and deco-
rating that theatre, a process it required after four
years' constant use, and preparatory to the opening
of the National Exhibition ; so, as the clown says
at Chritsmas," Here we are again." (Cheers.) But
why the Chamberlain should have been called upon
to withdraw his permission, and compel the theatres
to close, seems difficult to understand. The shops
are open, trade is going on, the lawyers are talking
in the law courts, work-people are at work every-
where, the music-halls are open, and you may hear
"Aunt Sally," though you may not listen to Shaks-
peare or Sheridan. Then why is the poor player to
hold his tongue ? A certain philosopher has said
that if any one set of men ought to go to heaven
more than another it is the rascals, because, he
argues, what fools the poor fellows are, what frights
they undergo, what infamy they get, and what ends
they come to ! are they, he says, to have nothing
for all this ? Now, I think if any class ought to be
made happy more than any other, it is the players ;
see how bishops, deans, and reverends are continu-
ally rising up against us; recollect how we are
obliged to be silent on Ash Wednesday, or when
any day of thanksgiving is appointed, and on other
occasions; think how we are denounced from some
of the sensation pulpits—(laughter)—and by per-
sons who know nothing whatever about us; think
how we are sometimes hissed—and are we to have
nothing for all this ? I know we are often encou-
raged by your applause, encouraged, too, by seeing
you assemble on such occasions as the present, and
encouraged in many other ways. Yet this med-
dling of the serious party with the amusements
of the people and the tolerant views of the Cham-
berlain only reminds me of what a countryman
once said in a pleasant little village when I
asked him if they danced round the Maypole
there now on May.day. "We used to," was
his reply, " but it's all been done away with by
the clergy—they put it down." " What for ?" I
inquired. " Well, sir," he answered, " because they
can't bear to see people enjoy themselves."
(Laughter.) Mr. Buckstone after some further
observations concluded as follows :—Wo shall soon
have many more claimants, therefore help us to do
our duty by them all. We know you have had
numerous calls upon your bounty lately, and all for
excellent objects ; but still, please to remember the
poor player—please to remember those who in their
days of health and strength have done their best to
amuse and instruct you, ;Ind also remember that
charity is like mercy, e It blesseth him that gives
and him that takes." (Loud applause.)
Mr. B. WEneyett, in proposing the next toast,
said the ban had that ("veiling been taken -Off the
theatrical profession, and, for the first time, it had
been raised one step above acrobats and niggers.