The Sun. — 1856-12-15 (London, England)

AND MRS. T. GERMAN REED,  AT THE GALLERY OF ILLESTRATION.  We enjoyed the privilege on Saturday evening of attending at the above Gallery, among a select circle, to witness the private performance of Mr. and Mrs. German Reed in their new and very sparkling Entertainment. An entertainment which will be publicly inaugurated this evening—and which, we doubt not for one moment, will rival its predecessor in popularity and success, if it does not actually eclipse it altogether by at once extending and enhancing the reputation of the two artistes, artistes as lively and amusing as they are versatile and indefatigable. The scheme of the new Entertainment is soon told. It resembles in some measure the old and laughable stage-equivoque —known far and wide as "TheManagerin Distress.'i That capital bit of affected reality so bewildering to every one not " up" to the secret at the first moment—bringing the Manager apologetically to the footlights—arousing the indignation of an irascible gentleman in the Pit—kindling the ire of another irascible gentleman in the Boxes—and waking up at last the dormant wrath of a third still-more-irascible " gentleman" (in his shirtsleeves) up in the Top Gallery ! Until the House rings with their wrangling voices—and there is a notion at last among the uninitiated part of the audience that the Police will have to be called in to put a stop to the disturbance. When— lo, and behold ! an explanatory whisper somehow gets abroad ! People begin to look at one another with a gradually dawning consciousness of having been "played upon," or "Sold," or " Roasted," or " Hocussed," or whatever else you may like to call it ! Those who have been all the while laughing in their sleeves—now fairly laugh outright ! And the jest comes to an end, at last, in the midst of very general hilarity with the edairicssement that the Abusers of Mr. Manager are after all really and truly among the Stars of his Company—that the gentleman in the Pit is Mr. So-and-So, the Light Comedian ; that the gentleman in the boxes, is Mr. What-d'yecall-em, the Tragedian ; and that the gentleman (in his shirt sleeves) up in the three-penny gallery, is Mr. Thinggummee, who sang the comic song just now (in a red wig), and danced the frog-dance with the lady's-maid at the tail-end of the interlude ! Well, the old old joke of " The Manager in Distress," it seems, has furnished a capital notion of a new entertainment to Mr. and Mrs. German Reed. The last mentioned—better known by her familiar name as Miss Priscilla Horton, or, best of all, indeed by the mere initial of it as Miss P. Horton —after a moment's pause, on the drawing up of the curtain, suddenly appears upon the stage or platform (the said stage or platform being decorated, as usual, after the fashion of an elegant, gilded, armolu'd buhl-adorned apartment), with an appearance of considerable "flurry," "worry," " hurry,'' and general puzzlement. The Murder comes out in a minute or two through divers gasps of apology—Mrs. Reed incoherently hinting to her audience her extreme regret that her husband's unexpected non-appearance upon the scene prevents the forth-corning of their newly projected entertainment—" The Lady of Lucerne." In the midst of these stammered explanations, on comes Mr. Reed, to be dragged into them, as it were, neck-and-heels, in due course, to his apparent bewilderment ! Mutual explanations of another kind then take place before the footlights as to the cause of this general want of punctuality—when the lady annodnces to her astonished lord the magnificent proposal held out to them both by some new Gye or Lumley, Bunn or Barnum— tempting them with a promise of 60,0001. (and all expenses paid) to a world-wide tour like that recently made by Miss Catherine Hayes, here, there, and everywhere ! A young-lady-Ward is the only incumbrance calculated in any way to preclude them from at once snapping at the proposition. With a view to the ridding themselves of which incumbrance, Mrs. German Reed, it then appears, has inserted an advertisement, in that day's Times, for a Governess. Having explained which preliminaries with delightful volubility, and handed to her still rather bewildered mate a copy of the paper containing her advertisement—Mrs. German Reed hastens away to the City in the hope of completing her negotiations with the aforesaid G. L. B. Barnum, Esq., leaving Mr. German Reed, Times in hand, seated before the open piano, with a look of comic surprise in his eyes— to await the arrival, there and then, of the probable candidates for the office of Gouvernante. There is the " cue" of the whole Piece ! Au obvious " cue" enough. Mrs. German Reed that is—Miss P. Horton that