The Statesman.
London, England, 1809-10-30 00:00:00

To the EDITOR of THE ST4TESM4N.
--.0.--

Ste—ln the namo of my brethren, vulgarly
called Traps, I beg kave to say, that we should
never have dreamt of attending the Row Shop,
11:141 ire not received Iris in our principal Mak. pu.
sitive and strict orders to apprehend, pull up, and
!crab, as the Law directs, all idle Rioters and dis-
orderly person•, such as Horts.hlowerg, Hissers,
Toraspeferw, Rgitiors, /I hisiter,, Groaners,
&c. kc. The job was not a profitable one, be.
inz uo re;:ard; but go wo must, or leave the
oilce. Bone of us gut a good thamphig for our
pliqs ; um!, what is worse, expect to be troubled
with indictments and actions for our over offici-
ousness. So, n,► more at present from your dis-
consolate

808 BLUNDERBUSS.
Ru••i!fl Coffee-13(1w. apw•street.
P. S. The Jra Prigs and Punching Men, that
kiekt up the row in the Pot, did nut belong to us.

TH L► •STA'

To rat Eol7Vit yr TIIE STITESIGIN.

Sin—As the Covenl•garden Grand Jury bane
only returned True Bills against 12—ont of the
41 persons charge/1 with high crime" and noiscle.
'Nemours at the Nete Theatre Royal, I beg leave
to recuminend that good legal advice be hail, how
far it would he advisable fur those who have beets
liberated to bring actions against the Magistrates
who committed them, and the Constables and Po-
lice Officers who apprehended them. Many of
these persons certainly acted with the most unjus-
tifiable violence.
-Lincolq's Ina. A CCINSTANT READER.

COVENT-GARDEN THEATRE.

TO THE 1.131T0R SrATESUtN.

Bin—M.44, 'during several evenings been an
attentive observer of the proceedings at Covent.
garden Theatre, I am induced to trouble you with
a few facts respecting the very impartial and
dirinterestcd conduct of th . worthy and enlight.
cued Magistrates of now.street, in their laudable
elitists to put a stop to the tumult. On Saturday
last I entered the Pit, accompanied by an iiiteili.
gent friend, who bad scarcely procured a place
oa the last row u( the Pat before he was accosted
by an ill-looking fellow with a dirty neckcloth,
.who thrust his fist in his face, and asked him if
•" he had a mind for any thing." In the first
impulse of resentment, I kit struagly tempted to
knock him down,but reoollecting that we went there
for a better purpose than engaging in an affray, and
that a pretence would gladly be sought to insure our
apprehension, we prudently forbore to notice the
unprovoked insult. A few minutes after, this
fellow, in concert with about half a dozen others,
who surrounded him, attacked a young Gentle.
man for hissing, tore his coat, and threw him
down ; he applied to me to know if I could assist
him, to procure a Peace Officer. I isnmediately.
pointed to one who stood quietly near us at the
back of the Pit ; but upon applying to him, he
refu,(9l to take charge of the assailant, ullegieg
that " he saz., no breach of the peace ;" but if
he had, that he would have taken both parties,
the complainant as well as the delinquent, into
custody. It was in vain that the Gentleman
showed his turn coat, (offered to point out the
ruffian, and swear to the assault—the Officer
persisted in his wilful blindness. During the re.
mainder of the evening, these ruffians were coil.
Banally engaged in creating uproar and could.
len, and insnlting and annoy ing every one amend
them. Several Gentlemen were severe'y hurt, and
yet, nut one Peace °Aker could see a breach
of the peace—they were all absolutely stone
blind--and so far from offering protection
to the assaulted, insulted spectators, one of
them, a stunt athletic man, went up to a youth
who was -standing upon one of the benches,
atid told him that he bad marked him—and a few
minutes afterwards, took the opportunity of an
affilty to approach him, during the confusion, :Ind
knock him dub:u ! The conduct of these ratlines
at length became se outrageous, that about half.
past nine o'clock, a deputation of reipeetable gen-
tlemen went to Bow-street, for the purpose or
procuring a wiyrrasit to apprehend them, boot were
idol-tied that Mr. Graham was gone h.:me! The
above facts I should content myself unlit barely
laying before your Readers, but I cannot help eon.
trailing tka etramiseforbitorassee and serspislos:
attention tu krill's** observed by the Boir.street
.11agistratcytucturds the prise-fightcrs and raffians
who are nightly hired to insult and ill-treat the
audience, with the rigorous severity, and heavy
bail required, at an unseasonable hour, from
Gentlemen, however remote from their friends
and home—and asking whether they can be recoil-
cited either with the Laws and Constitution of our
Country, or the principles of impartiality and
j astice ?

Yotse!,.

J. 6. J.

To the EDITOR of TUE ST.ITES.II4IIT.

Sia...l cannot persuade myself that a News.
paper lilt.: yours, which professes independence,
should arrogate to itself a right to be personally
abusive toms individual, because he has, in common
with the major part of the Public, given an upi.
tilos' ou the dispute with the Proprietors of Co-
vent Garden Theatre. Your liberal Correspond-
out has dared utter that sort of language, he has
not the courage to avow with his signature, and
therefore it would probably have been as prudent
to have treated it with contempt—there are, how.
ever, to be found those who might be pleased to
construe silence into an admission of the fact, and
I therefore feel it a duty I owe myself, to declare,
1 that the letter which appeared in your paper on
Saturday evening, signed 0. P. is a gross and wil.
ful falsehood. Your Correspondent has presumed
to assert, that I assisted Mr. Brandon in the dirty
work of the Theatre. It must be a very had
! cause that stands in need of this low-minded advo-
cate, and I shall content myself by observing,
that if he will dare avow his name, I will submit
(for once) to the degradation of performing the
4 6 dirty work" of giving him that sort of chastise- l
1 ment, his unworthy conduct so justly entitles him 1
to. I am glad your friend Vcritas has so soon
read his recantation-..probably he has been told, by
wiser heads than his unit, that it is not consistent
i with the liberty of the press to attack a Juryman
in the discharge of an arduous, but Imperative
duty; and that the air of the King's Bench Prison
is nut very inviting at the approaching season
of the year. Be that as it may, I envy him
not his feelings (if he be possessed of any)
for being the propagator of so much slander
and falsehood ; nor will it diminish his mor.
tikation, when lie is aslured that my father
(who is the subject of his indecent attack)
had not been in town for two mouths, till the
evening previous to his being summoned upon the
Grand Jury, and, of course, was never inside
the Theatre; and that neither him or myself have'
any property or interest whatever in that concern.
I have thought this expl.nation due to my own
feelings, and have only to observe, 1 shall hold
you as responsible for any other libel that may ap-
pear, as affecting my father or myself.
tureot-wrdea, Suoday. ti. 11, ROBINS.

••,-..Nim

' ill\ l If
•

—r--
Th the EDITOR of T•'IB ST'ATESAIIAN.

Stu—Mr. Mainwaring, In his charge to the
Gravid Jury of the Westminster Sessiums, relative
to the disturbance at the new Theatre, after bring.
in; forward a long series of sophistic observations
in favreor of the Proprietor", broached some doe.
trines, which, its my opinion, were moire mom-
struus than hid ever before been delivered from
any Bench. He expressly coautions the Jury, in
determining the causes which are about to come
before them, not to suffer their judgment to be
influent.. I by their opinion of the propriety or
impropriety of the Managers raising their prices,
or who is right or who is wrong, but merely to
examine, from the evidence, whether the persons
charged with having committed unlawful acts, to
thu injury of the Proprietors, have done su or
not. loi my opinion, Mr. Mainwaritig ought to
have said exactly the contrary. Good Gun !
n h-re has the Gentleman teamed either his law or
his morality ?—ls it not the constant practice, in
criminal cases, to enter largely before the Jury in.
to a consideration of the principles of public pu.
licy which make it necessary to punish in an ex.
emplary manlier the olfenees charged against the
prisoners at their Bar ? When a man is arraigned
for forgery, is nut the Jury instructed in the tie.
lure of • public credit, and the importance of our
commerce ?—When fur adultery, how essential to
social order is the sanctity of the marriage bed I
—As Mr. Mainwaring loves the Public es dearly i
as the Public lore f ion, and a oald bo• extremely
sorry to sacrifice the liberties and fortunes of his
fellusr.criatures to au error of judgment. we may I
hope that his next charge will be to the following 'i
effect :
" GENITLEMEN—TiIe case now before you is
of a very singular complexion ; for in general you
have to decide upon o,:fences committedagainst the
Public, but now upon the Public itself, at the
suit of certain players: the individuals under pro.
motion are merely indicted as part of a resisting
Public, and my duty will lead mo to state briefly
the grounds of the (pseud between then. and the!
Proprietors of the Theatre, is order that you
may cli.cover in what degree the Gentlemen now
at your Etc ars entitled to your especial pkotec-
lion.
66 Gentlemen, the Proprietors of the present
Theatre ware also the Proprietors of the last :
they paid large sums of money for their shares,
which were estimated at as Ideal value, mid yet
they thought it advisable not to insure the pro-
po.rty they had s ► embarked. They were mer-
chants who were their own insurers—who saved
the premium, but lost the vesse% • Other mer-
chants, under the sante circumstances, would have
been h k rtopts, uepitied and unrelieved.; bet
these people have another resunrce: they insist
that the Public has run the risk, that the Public
shall effect the insurance, and their claim are
backed by all the civil authority of the country.
They charge upon us as a debt, for which we must
pay an enormous interest, er forego the privilege
of theatrical represeetallrie, or be err:signal—at
this Bar, not only the original cost of the old
Theatre, but the ideal value which they paid for
their shares, and also the cost of the new. They
charge us with those sums for which an insurance
ought to have been effected, and call us a liberal
Pubiic.-1 have heard of a thief calling a inane
whom he had robbed of his watch and his money,
a liberal passenger, but that I considered adding
insult to injury.
" The point at issue between the Proprietors
and the Public, is, whether the risk of the late
Theatre shall have been run, and the insurance
effected, by those who have put tho premium in
their pockets, or by the other party : fur the old
prices would be clearly sufficient to support a
Theatre burdened by no other charges than the
cost of its building. I abstain front mentioning
the Committee to whom the Proprietors submitted
their accounts, order that the Public might be
informed of the profits of the late Theatre, and
calculate what it would be just to give fur admis.
siun into the new, because, the dissatisfaction ex.
cited by the report of that Committee is very
general ; and people feel grieved and rather alarm.
ed, at finding that persons who hold situations of
so high responsibility, will condescend to palm a
trick upon the Public, by calculioing as an aver-
age year of the profits of the late Theatre, the
loss sustained by keeping the company together
for the ben. it of the new establishment. But we
arc told, Gentlemen of the Jury, that any body
who objects to the prices may abstain from thea-
triesl exhibitions. Here then the injury is com-
plete. The monopoly occasioned by exclusive
Patents, reduces the unwarranted advance of
prices into a tax—a tax indeed upon olio of the
luxuries of life, and of the same ~store as a tax
Upon wine, or carriages, or any other thing, with.
out which life might still be supported. I need
Out tell you, Gentlemen, that the principle
of private taxation in the luxuries of life, is
equally pernicious with that of private taxation
upon the necessaries of lifts ; because, were one
.0( these sources of revenue diminished, the deli-
eiency insist he supplied from the other ; and if
theatrical exhibitions be nut lit objects of a public
tax, then a fortiori not of a pa.kote one. It
liws always been the policy of all civilized states to
flattish the people with amooscooents as cheap as
competition would allow ; and I cannot help
thinking those persons in coacert with the cue.
miss of the country, who, to perievere in a fraud,
wo.tild excite as much dissatisfaction, as would
be pruiuced by a famine, or as has been produced
by our two late unfortunate expeditions, which
have probably cost twelve millions of moneys
" The Legislature of the Country seems wholly
to have overlooktd,' and then fore not to have
provided for, the case of a nest of playeis, tisrt
attempting to cheat, and theft to intimidate the
Public ; the law has provided no check upon the
fraud and insolence of these oirio—so that if the
Managers had asked a guinea, instead of seven
shillings, for admissiuoi into the Boxes, the situa-
tion of the Gentlemen now tinder prosecution
would not have varied from
:what it is at this mo•
mesa.

-

" These persecuted individuals Ire stood for.
ward the champions of the fp nerAl interests of the


TILE C.ISE I:IC.II4RD DRAPER.

.-- • •11••••••

7'llE MARKETS.

CORN-EXCHANGE-0c ronew 33.

-

I4tY•MARIET.

Illy M. 04. Od. I* S. 03. M.
Straw 2l Od. t 0 O. 103. Od.
Clifver

__s_ ....

faintly, the only means that were open to the
Public ; did not the names of a similar dc.
scripts!' of men sparkle through 41.1 tlte pages of
our history, instead of enjuying the blessings of
Magna Charta, and the Bill of Rights, with a
dynasty the object of our affection and net choice,
we might have been siiiTering under the 6ra3P of a
Nero, or a Napoleon.

" I have been thus circumstantial iamy obser.
vations, Gentlemen of the Jury, because I feel
tbat I should be anworthy of the situation I now
fill, so much to the public advantage and my own
honour, did I not tell yu►y tl►st if you are really
of opinion that these men were ainglod out as
martyrs in the cause of the Public, and Abet cause
a just one, yon will nut only feel it your loth.
nation, but it will be your duty, to gird then► the
full benefit of the least defect of evid:ltee, and
even to be active in bringing forward to their ad.
vantage the least circumstance of suspicion with
which the testimony of tl►e witnesses may be eon.
ta►ninated.

" I shall not take notice to you, Gentlemen,
of that species of evidence upon which an honest
and conseientibes man would be loth to convict
an enemy's dog ; but you will haru. before yea
theinuch respected and notorious Mr. Brandon,
and all the venerable and illustrious host of thief.
takers, who (well pald fur all the malevolence and
anger which they have 'hewn towards the Public,
and having entered the lists with all the fury of
partizans) will yet be able, in consequence of
the extent of their faculties (what you and I, in.
deed, poor simple men ! might think impossible),
to swear distinctly to the acts of this or that man,
in the midst of so great confusion : and I have
reason to believe they will give their evidence
without tha least hesitation or doubt. You uill
believe them, if you can.
" Gentlemen of the Jury, the eyes of the coon.
try are fixed spun this box—in your hands is re.
pt.sed the national character, upon which all our
b'essings, civil and religious, depend. Think not
the cause trifling, because It is against the lowest
of mankind that the Public• has been under the
necessity of contending : the meanness of the sub.
ject renders the consequeures more alarming :
what has a man to hope for that is overwhelmed
by a straw ? Shook! you—a British Jury !—take
part againit, the interests of your country ? To
what encroachinents, let th—li come from what
quitter they may, ein resistance henceforward be
effectually made ? ‘Vhere is the evil to stop ? Yon
have now to decido, not only upon the Gentlemen
at the bar, but on yourselves, on me, on our
children, an'? our children's children. You will
du year duly—and not be appalled."
A BRITON.

Amongst the numerous cues of brutal vio.
lance and oppression by the agents of the The-
atre, m hich hare, occurred during the contest at
Covont-G,rden, that of Richard Draper is not
the least ilagrAat. This unfortunate individual,
by profession, to use the epithet of the Covent
Garden Buz-keeper, a journeyman currier, was
dragged from one of the one shilling pigeon•hoks,
ou the night of Thursday, the 19th of this month.
Two of his shopmates, and two other r:spectable
persons, who wore present at the whole transac-
tion, offered testimony to prove that Draper was
not the person against whom the fury of Professor
Brandon was intended to hays been directed.
The real otinrider escaped, and Draper was mis-
taken for that individual.

The public accuser, however, never acknow-
ledges a mistake; and although tie must be be-
lieved to have been conscious that in this instance
he had certainly mistaken his victim, he persevered
!in smearing to the person of Draper—the testi..
molly of four individuals W:l9 not received, and
heavy hail was demanded by the Magistrate. Bail
was offered on the sput,but rejected,on the ground
uf a want of knowledge uf the sufficiency. Draper
was committed to T4)0611-fields Bridewell, and
there he remains to this moment. The Magis-
trates have, doubtless, felt themselves compelled
to commit, on oath being made by the party
accusing—such certainly is the law. But the im-
prisonment of individuals on. charges so indefinite,
so imperfectly supported, and hi many instances
where testimony has been offered flatly contradic-
tory, is certainly what our ancestors could never
have expected to be.tainely witnessed by their pos-
terity. Draper, kis wife and children, are now
exiling upon charity. There has been through-
out this contest a degree of brutality and unfeeling
persecution oil the part of the Proprietors and
their Agents, which must fur ever mark them as
the objects uf public hatred and contempt. But
it is nut the wealthy they attack—on the poverty
uf victims is principally founded tilt it hope of
success. But that hope is delusiri, and will be
thf...uted by the PUITLI e.

Tile supply of %VW'S this Jay is but inconsi.
derable, and sales thereof are somewhat dearer
than oh Frislay. 13.14 ley rather lower. Malt
liken ise. White Peas are cheaper. Beans of tho
two kinds also. ''here are tolerable iupi•lics of
Oats and this article is named at little variation,
and Door continues at late prices.

. CURRENT PRICE OF GRAIN.
Wheat. - - 73, 99. A 1010. Tick Beans, - - 4.51, 531,
Vine ditto -- - - Ittdo. 1124. Oth,
Rye, - - 37.. 40g.
&wiry, - - to 410.
Shit, - - - £4B .234.
W. I'. ac (Boiler') 84.-Sh. 1. toe Flour - - - 906. ”4t,
titre Pena. a4,. Sec, nd%
Brack. - b*. 641.
SMITH 1. Itil.1)-04T. S 3.
To iirtk th- Offal, per 61014 C Or Bib.

to 5.. W. Item' of Cattle this day
Abater' ..4-. 61. to 5- ttli. I Be.t.st-
Veda Od. V.I. I Mery
Pork 01. to is. OA. 1 Cakes
UJ. to 04. tat. I Pigs