The Central Glamorgan Gazette, and General, Commercial, and Agricultural Advertiser. — 1869-01-22 (Bridgend, Mid Glamorgan, Wales)

OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.  Our nadirs wOl understand that w. do not hold ourselves rapes. . .  ate for our able Correspondent's %Anjou&  OF all the curiosities of London, certainly the theatres are not the least curious. It is commonly said that money can always be found to build a ship or a theatre, and this would seem to be true; for while we hear constantly of the misfortunes of managers, and of how this or that actor who had realised a good fortune in his profession has lost it through his ambition to become a manager, still every convenient site is with extraordinary rapidity turned into a theatre. Two have opened recently. Lyon's Inn was taken and pulled down for a hotel during the financial mania, when hotels were the favourite subjects for the speculations of the promoters of limited companies. It was to be the Strand-hotel, with a coraraunication by a bridge with a frontage in the Strand, on the site of an old tavern, the Spotted Dog, once patronised by the lower order of betting men. But even the partial confidence of a firm of most eminent builders could not complete the scheme, and, after remaining in a state of scaffolding for three years, the Lyon's Inn] portion was sold, and converted with incredible rapidity into the Globe Theatre, and under that title is now open. The last speculation, under the ominous name of the Gaiety, commenced its career last week, and has simply the very best situation in London. A joint stock company first sunk all the money it could beg or borrow for building a "Strand Miulick-hall." Music-halls were then considered to be perfect gold mines. They have nearly all gone to grief BLUM Before the Strand Musick-hall was opened bankruptcy and suicide gave notoriety to its board of directors. After a short and dreary career it was closed, and so remained until the principal proprietors of the moat successful penny daily paper took it in hand, gutted it, added to the ground, and built a theatre, to which a restaurant is to be added—a restau. rant en the Paris plan, with numerous comfortable private rooms for select parties to dine or sup I The Gaiety is to be a sort of dramatic Alhambra. But although these two theatres are absolutely new, there are a number of others on which a great deal of money has been spent in restoration and decoration. It is not no very long since Mr. Hullah's music-hall, which came to grief in a fire, was converted into the " Queen's." About the same time the Holborn was opened, and has; since been adorned, regardless of expense, at the cost of a committee of guardsmen. Every one knows that Her Majesty's Theatre, the old Open-house in the Haymarket, has ruined every specu. later. Nevertheless, it is being rapidly rebuilt, to be opened in competition with the Royal Italian Opera, Covent-garden, which lives more by its wits than its profits. " '  Now is the time of pantomimes, which are got up at enormous expense, often by people who have no money, by the assistance of that extraordinary class the theatrical usurer. This usurer is generally a Hebrew; he is, next to mosey, passionately fond of theatricals, and is always ready to help a man of straw to launch a theatrical speculation by lending money and selling the needful properties at an incredible rate of interest For a nominal thousand pounds he puts down five or six hundred. If there is a run and a hit then he is magnificently paid ; if the success is moderate he trusts to dragging his principal back by nightly grabs; if the failure is complete then he tears his hair, and tries to secure as much as possible out of the losses of tradesmen new to theatrical speculations. When at any theatre you see amongst the officials and visitors a decided preponderance of the Hebrew element, you may anticipate an early and disastrous close of the season. London theatres are another form of gambling without cards or roulette-table. There must be amongst the supernumeraries of theatres—male and female, infants and adults—some thousands who would get no new clothes in the year without the Christmas entertainments. Sprites, demons, fairies, As., at from twelve to sixteen shillings a week, for ten weeks, run into thousands of pounds. Just before ,Christmas I saw a small street full, at least two thousand, waiting to be hired. These supers include, beside outcasts, a number of very decent people, who look forward to the extra wages once a year as a sort of nest-egg. Most of the proprietors of music-halls are in difficulties—the working classes have so little money to spend in amusements. Worst sign of all, the Crystal Palace has not only ceased to pays dividend, but has descended to the management of Mr. E. T. Smith, of Cremorne—a terrible falling down from Science and Art and Handel Festivals. The Crystal Palace has created the finest suburb near London, and originated the most useful chain of metropolitan railways; and has, in fact, conferred prosperity at the expense of its own ruin. The Christmas week has also been signalised by the opening of the Underground Railway from Moorgater street to Westminster. This is now an omnibus line running every five minutes, and will have a most important effect on the traffic to the City from Notting, hill and Kensington. It will make visits to the Kensington-museum much easier, and add to the traffic of the Thames steamboats, until the time when the line is continued from Westminster to Cannon-street, a date apparently distant. Westminster is becoming • quarter of the town that one will not be ashamed to show to the "intelligent foreigner." P. P.