The Sun.
London, England, 1856-03-29 00:00:00

The foilewing letter has been addressed to the Editor
of the Tines :
Sin—l have waited with patience the termination of
the investigation into the ses of the late disastrous
11
fire at Coveetegarden The : re, and I have boree in
silence the libellous assertions and more libellous irruen-
does unsparingly made against me by some portion of
the press. I bad determined to "bide my time"—te
allow the public to have their say, and all those petty
calunmiatere who are always ready to pursue a man
with envy when he is nreirpiroue, and with . detraction
when they fancy he is 4el ~" to have theirs like-wise.
I knew that I had an int 4 -• .1 tribunal to which to ap-
peal in the Times new ..-e..l' and deeming that the time
had now arrived when a -o.r. :ment from me and a vindi-
cation of my conduct are deere both to the public and to
myself, T respectfully bet confidently clSim to be
Allowed to plead before the most influential. court Of
public opinion in the woad—to hold up my blend in
your dock—and to say badly, "Not Guilty" to all the
chargee, direct and inditeck, preferred against me.
It would be pu,iilanitrotil in me to shrink from direct,
reference to the most current and most malignant eccu-
eatien against me. It maybe sneeringly objected, •that
"Ire who excuses accuses-himself;" but the aepersions on
mein the newspapere haveassurned far too definite a form
for me to pass them over in silence, and the plain truth
inust out—that I am either an incendiary or a deeply
wronged and injured men. If I were the cause of the
destruction of Covent-garden Theatre, it must either
have been by an act of deliberate arson or through cul-
pable negligence. That 1 sun accused of either one or
then other is palpable, I think, from the accompanying
extian from lunch' : .
"Of ties -Wiatrd of the North,
" • Si nig the !Nese-aye niglit'e renown,
" Whtin -he la the--o,,rg, fo,,tii,. ::._:. _
"A ref burnt thenregyhoeib 'down"
Now, this may, be, story deggrel. and only a specimen of
the notorious waggeries of Mr. Punch. It may be mca tt
"only in fun ;" but fun that in plain English accuses a
man whore reputation is his bread of letting gas burst
forth and so burning down a theatre is fun of the frog
and boy specie —it is death to me. Humouroue or
serious, there cannot be any mistake about the meaning
endeavoured to be conveyed by the list two lines. The
Punch, ,cribe migtt insinuate with equal jecoeeness that
I murdered Elize Grimwood or stole the Royal nursery
plate, ao that through any act of mino the theatre of
which I was a tenant was destroyed. Nor can I aff eel
to pass such a statement by with contempt. In an or-
dinary c mile publication I should look at it as a silly
squib ; but Punch is an institution and an authority,
and a flee in its columns has often more power for
goad cr evil than a page elsewhere.
I may be wanting in the etiquette of journalism in
endeavouring to refute in the pages cf the Times attacks
made upon me in other jeutnals. Bet what am Ito de?
Will those papere which have so foully slandered me in-
sert my vinclicaticn ? And is it not better for me to ap.
peal to one thoroughly impartial and disinterested on
either side of the question ? What course of redress is
open to me, for instance, against the Spectator, which,
in its number for Saturday, March 8, coolly remarks :
—" Covent Garden Theatre is burnt down, and the
public, taught by experienee, at once suspects the in-
cendiary." Will the writer of that remark deny that
the " experience" alluded to is but a reference to the
calumny of the "two theatres burnt down under my
management," and that I consequently am pointed at as
the "incendiary" suspected 1 And yet, were Ito ap-
ply to the editor of the Spectator to open his columns to
my denial, would it not be very probab'e that my only
reward would be a centetnptuoae inquiry as to who had
accused me by name, and a recommendation to wear the
nap if it fitted me ? In the Examine,. again (I quote
none but powerful journals), there has appeared a leader
in which, in fervent language, my bal masque' is de-
nounced as a scene of the most rampant debauchery
and abominable harlotry, and in which it is almost re-
gretted that the "orgie" was not brought to a termina-
tion by fire frem Heaven, instead of the material element;
and by Mr. Douglas Jerrold I am described as " a fire-
king enthroned on a tarbarrel, whose reputation will be
burnt into the memories of generations."
I heve it net in contemplation fir one moment to at-
tempt to combat the suddenly virtuous indignation of
the Press against bale masques in general. It is not for
me to enter into the question of their morality or im -
morality. Assuming them to b., scenes as depraved as
the purist of the Examiner describes them to be, may I
still be allowed to ask whether I invented or even re-
vived this cites of entertainment—whether I have been
singular in giving bale masques? There have have such
balls at her Majesty's Theatre, at Dairy-lane, and at
that very Covenngarlen where mine took place, and
under the auspices of the very manager with whom I
am now s ) enfavout ably contrasted. I gave my bal
masque with the concurrence of Mr. Gye, doing only
what had been done on the same arena many times be-
fore, and with the sole and stedfast view of discharging
my liabilities to my landlord by the only legitimate
means in my posse sion. Ido not think 1 an at all
overstating the case when I say that for all c4rninercial
purposes the ball was Mr. Gye's, not mine. He had at
first objected to its raking place ; but on my represent-
ing to his solicitor that I knew of no other process (owing
to the heavy losses I had already incurred) whet eby to
raise a sum sufficient to pay the balance of the rent out-
standing, and on toy executing a tomcat assignment of
the proceeds of the entertainment to Mr. Gye, that
fie ttletnan on being again conanuniceted with gave
his consent, on the understanding stated above ;
and in pet formance of my part of the contract
the whole of the sum received, amountiog to 7001., and
which had been lodged for safety, when the certflegtation
broke out, at the police-stetion, Bow-street, by toy secre-
tary, Mr. Hingstoo, was, on my written order, handed
over to Mr. Gye, and is now in his possession. Ail in-
cendiary, surely, would have played his cards better than
thus. I can prove what I have stated by my witnesses
and my documents ; at the same time I do not wish it
in any manner to go forth that I an desirous of bring-
ingch trees against Mr. Gye. He had behaved previously
most kindly and honourably to me ; he had consented
to wave our original arrangement, which was only for
magic performances and paototninie. He allowed me to
give, in addition, dramatic and operatic performances,
and he lent me dresses from the wardrobe for the lat-
ter purpose.

. .
It has been publicly stated that the verd!ct of the
c orenet's jury might have run thus :—" Dest, eyed by a
ma,ked ball, produced by puffs of a most deleterious
character.' Now, I will ask, supsosing that the bat
masque had gone off without an accident, it any such
scandalous remark would have been made ; or, again,
supposing that the neighbouring theatre of Drur)-lane
had been consumed during a similar entertainment, Mr.
E. T. Smith would have been held up to public odium as
I have been ? Tne disaster at Covent-garden might
have occurred during the performance of the " Hu-
guenots," during an oratorio, a Free Trade bazaar, or a
promenade concert ; and I think it is the grossest, the
cruelest, t! e most crying injustice to attempt to fix the
responsibiiity of this calamity, either directly or indi-
rectly, upon me, when there is not the shadow of evi-
dence to convict me even of negligence (tor the much
talked of wires of my galvanic apparatus would just as
soon—as any tyro in science will confirm—have set the
Thames on fire as the theatre), and when by this con-
flagration I am a most serious loser in character, in
purse, and in prospects.
But I am a" juggler," and no lenity is to be shown to
the "so-called Wizard," to the mountebank, to the
showman. lam a juggler, and accept the balls and basin
manfully. I have juggled for many years, with a great
deal of success, and have made and lost a great deal of
money. It is no idle boast, but a simple statement of
the truth, to remind the contemners of the mountebank
that I have juggled before most of the crowned heads in
Europe, and that the showman has been summoned to
Balmoral to juggle before her present Majesty. But
there is one thing I have always endeavoured to be in
addition to a juggler—viz., an honest man. _I wish to
use no hackneyed sentiment, but I am here to assert
my honesty and my manhood, and I will do so against
all comers. The " noble lyric temple of Covent-gar-
den" was desecrated by the occupancy of the juggler.
Why, when a moneyed tenant could not be found, was
the juggler's money so eagerly accepted ? Why, so
long as he was prosperous, was the juggler be-
praised and be-complimented ? Why, when fortune
for the moment frowns upon him, is he looked upon
as the lowest of the low, the vilest of the vile ? Who,
when I left the Lyceum Theatre, after an almost un-
precede' tedly successful campaign, protested against my
taking Covent-garden ? The press augured a splendid
season for me ; but I am now unfortunate, and I am now
a butt for every scribbler's sbatt—sneered at as a Merry-
Andrew, or darkly denounced as a " Swing."
My pantomime wag, commercially, a failure. I did
my best with it, and I did my best afterwards to right
myself by operas, by dramas, even by my much-abused
Bal Masque. Success I did not achieve; but may Ibe
permitted to ask my company, my tradesmen, and my
brother managers few questions ? Have my actors or
artisans ever gone on half salaries or found an empty
treasury on Saturday? Have I ever pandered to aristo-
cratic vices by giving engagements in the ballet, in ex-
change for subscriptions for stalls and private boxes ?
Have I ever allowed the vapid witlings of fashion—have
I permitted even my own friends—to dangle behind my
scenes ? Have I ever endeavoured to repudiate or to
evade one just demand upon me? I kept Covent-garden
open for nine weeks, I have wronged no man of one
farthing, and I have toiled like a slave to please the
oublic. But on the last night of my tenancy the theatre,
ioy an accident, inevitable and unaccountable, but with
which I have no more to do than the man in the moon,
is burnt down ; and my reward is an accusation of con
tractive arson, the most unmanly detraction, and the
foulest abuse.

My unqualified contradiction of public statements mad.
by Mr. Surnam and Mr. Marcus Sharpe that two theatres
—one in America, the other in Glasgow—had been burnt
down while under my control, has already gone forth
to the world ; that the statements themselves have done
;ne an incalculable amount of injury. Of the unfortu-
nate, and to me utterly ruinous, destruction of the ons
theatre with which I was connected—the City Theatre,
Glasgow have already offered explanations. But
should like to remind those charitable persons Night,
think the conflagration at Glasgow a prima facie case of