The Sun.
London, England, 1870-03-24 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, MARCH 24, 1870.

ADELPHI THEATRE.

Last evening a new drama, by Mr. H. J. Byron,
in four acts, entitled " The Prompter's Box, a Story
of the Footlights and the Firesile," was produced
here with complete success. The piece, as its name
implies, is a mixture of professional and private life,
the principal part being that of a certain Mr. Frank
Bristow, formerly an officer in the army, but now
the prompter at a provincial theatre at Snaggleton.
The plot bears a resemblance to that of " The First
Night," the heroine in both cases being a young
debutante under the protection of an aged father,
who is nervously anxious for her advancement. But
the situation of the young laly of Mr. Byron's
play is heightened by one of those generous
self-s tcrifices, for the sake of screeni,.g a
profligate member of the family, which are
so familiar to frequenters of the theatre. In brief,
the poor but proud prompter's daughter accepts from
the hands of her lover's father a consi lerable sum
of money, as the price of renouncing the love
of his son, and after suffering the imputation
of mercenary motives through two long acts
is at last cleared by the confession of the forger,
and finally happily married to the man who
had so long misunderstood her. The part of the
old fond fath,r was admirably acted by Mr.
B. Webster ; and the character of his daughter,
Florence, was most pathetically rendered by Miss
Furtado. Mrs. H. Mellon has a telling part, an
envious third-rate London star,which she represented
with great effect. The most marked character in the
drama was that sustained by Mr. Byron, De Lacy
Fitzaltimont, the leading tragedian of the company,
and the rendering of it will add fresh laurels to those
already acquired by the author as an actor. His
melancholy look, the conventional stage walk, the at-
titudes, and the make-up were all the efforts of a tho-
rough artist. In the progress of the piece Fitzaltimont
becomes a lecturer to a tribe of exhibiting Carraway
Indians from the centre of Africa; and, finally, he ex-
pands into a flashy comic singer, who advertises him-
self on gigantic posters as "Maximillian, the Mammoth
Comique." Mr. Byron was most happy in hitting
off the peculiarities and vulgarities of the class, and
the applause his efforts elicited was enthusiastic.
The drama has been well put upon the stage, and
from the favour with which it was received it will
keep its place in the bills for a considerable time.
The house was crowded in every part before the
rising of the curtain.

POLICE INTELLIGENCE-([HIS DA.T).

MARLBOROUGH-STREET.

Henry Faking, a carman employed at the Steam Mills,
Acton, was charged before Mr. Knox with working a horse
in an unfit state.

Police-constable Harding, 53 0, saw the defendant driving
a horse attached to a van laden with bales of linen, and on
examining the horse, which was very lame, he found that it
had a large sore under the collar, and a gentleman com-
plained to him of the horse having been ill-used by being
►hipped severely in Pall-mall.
George Young, en officer of the Royal Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said he had examined
the horse at the Greenyard, and found that it had a large
wound on th• withers, very lame in both fore legs, and much
bent over.

The defendant, who was admitted to bail, was remanded
for a week, to ascertain whether rest was all that the horse
required.