boxer in England. For some time it was found difficult to arrange a match, but the proposed conflict had caused so much excitement, and was known to be regarded with so much expectant attention among influential persons, that, either the police were baffled, or they made only a show of taking effectual means for preventing what was clearly an illegal assembly. On the 17th of April, 1860, a special train left London Bridge station, and, eluding a number of mounted police who were stationed for a considerable distance along the line, where it was expected the passengers would alight, turned off from the supposed route and stopped at Farnborough. Not far from Aldershott, in a field on the Hampshire side, a ring was formed, and the two men, who had there met for the first time, stood up amidst a great crowd of spectators, largely composed of noblemen, gentlemen of rank, members of parliament, members of the learned and artistic professions, and even of clergymen. It is only reasonable to conclude that some kind of sentiment not very easy to explain had grown out of the public excitement, and probably also out of the bellicose spirit promoted by the recent aggressive temper of the country, which eclipsed the actual nature of an exhibition more brutal and sickening than had ever been witnessed even in the modern prize-ring. There is no need to follow the revolting details. Heenan, the American, was a youthful giant six feet two inches in height, of enormous muscular proportions, with overwhelming strength, and in perfect training. Sayers was but five feet eight inches high, and though a powerful man, and rendered hard and enduring by constant exercise, not comparable to his antagonist except for activity, cool skill, and that sort of intrepidity which is of the bull-dog sort. For thirty-eight “rounds" these two men pounded each other with blows, by which they were frequently dashed to the ground. Heenan's face was battered out of human semblance, and when the fight was over he was completely blinded by the terrific and repeated hits of his adversary, one of whose arms had been completely disabled at an early period of the fight. Sayers was a less dreadful spec tacle, but he also received severe though only temporary injuries, and might have succumbed to Heenan, who, it was said, caught him at the ropes and nearly strangled him, but that some alleged unfairness in this proceeding caused the umpires to put an end to the fight, just as the police, who had at last mustered in suffi. cient force, broke their way into the ring. This termination to the horrible spectacle caused much dissatisfaction and a good deal of crimination between the rival backers, which was but imperfectly allayed by the presentation of a belt to each of the combatants. Sayers, however, who was regarded as a hero, made a kind of triumphal entry into London and afterwards into Liverpool, considerable sums being collected for him on the Stock Exchange and at other places. The event might not have found a record in these pages but for the fact that one of those places was the division lobby of the House of Commons, where "the great prize-fight" became the subject of part of the proceedings. Mr. W. Ewart, member for Dumfries, rose to ask whether steps would be taken to prevent such brutal exhibitions in future. Mr. Vincent Scully, an Irishman with a considerable dash of humour in his character, gravely protested against the "outrage of public morals," which he averred would not be tolerated in Ireland. Sir George Cornewall Lewis, as home secretary, made a half serious half humorous reply which meant little or nothing, and in which he remarked that " it had been said that pugilistic encounters afforded a model of fair fighting, and afforded an inducement to practise a mode of fighting better than the use of the bowieknife or the stiletto, or that other mode of fighting not uncommon in Ireland, namely, with the shillelagh." This was, of course, one way of getting out of the difficulty, but Lord Palmerston had declared that he saw nothing more demoralizing in a boxing-match than in an ascent in a balloon. This declaration may have had some pungent truth in it, but the fact remained that prize-fighting was an offence against the law. Many of the members chuckled or laughed outright at the home secretary's evasion of the difficulty, and some of the sporting representatives of the nation DEGRADING AMUSEMENTS-MUSIC-HALLS-CREMORNE. stationed themselves in the lobby and levied contributions for Tom Sayers which amounted altogether to about a hundred pounds. But from that time the prize-ring ceased to be acknowledged as a national institution. It was, perhaps, a good thing that the latest attempt to revive it had been accompanied with so much that was revolting, and when the false enthusiasm cooled, "the championship" of professional bruisers soon ceased to be of any imperial or of much public concern. "I am not very proud," wrote Cobden to Mr. Hargreaves, “of the spectacle presented by our merchants, brokers, and M.P.'s in their ovations to the pugilist Sayers. This comes from the brutal instincts having been so sedulously cultivated by our wars in the Crimea, and especially in India and China. I have always dreaded that our national character would undergo deterioration (as did that of Greece and Rome) by our contact with Asia. With another war or two in India and China, the English people would have an appetite for bull-fights, if not for gladiators." Lord Palmerston's remark that a boxingmatch was no more demoralizing than a balloon ascent had more in it than may appear at first sight. There was a general tendency to increase exhibitions the chief attractions of which were the perils in which the performers were placed, and balloon ascents, including a male or a female acrobat swinging from a "trapeze" fastened to the car,-or mounted or suspended on a kind of platform surrounded by fireworks, were found exceedingly attractive. Women, or youths pretending to be women, performed gymnastic feats, the least failure in which, or in the apparatus, would be dangerous and might prove fatal. These exhibitions took place in music-halls and other places. The music-hall itself was becoming a permanent institution. The old fairs like that formerly held at Greenwich had been abolished. Bartlemy and Bow and Stepney fairs had been suppressed in the interests of public order and morality, but large buildings, licensed for music, for stage-dancing, and for performances of other descriptions, and licensed also for the sale of strong drink and tobacco to the audience, began to multiply. Instead of being only occasional resorts like the fairs, these places were open nightly, to admit the debased and the degraded as well as the comparatively innocent. In some instances the music-halls became sinks of immorality, and in most cases they possessed dangerous facilities for contracting vicious habits and joining evil company. Since the Great Exhibition of 1851, and subsequent on supposed familiarity with foreign customs and amusements, there had been constant endeavours to assimilate some of our public recreations to those which were represented to be the simple, gay, and sober amusements of the people who resorted to the concert-rooms and gardens of France, Italy, and Germany. The most conspicuous result seems to have been the multiplication of licenses, which included amusements neither simple nor sober even if they could be called gay; and the resuscitation of certain "gardens," where, if the "humours" of old Ranelagh and Vauxhall were present, the gross immoralities of both were probably sometimes surpassed. Of these public gardens, that called Cremorne, on the banks of the river near Chelsea, was most conspicuous and most largely patronized. It was known that personages of high rank frequently visited it and joined with demi-reps and the demi-monde in the bals masqués and other amusements. For some time it was a resort of all the "fast" set in society, and even some of the more prudent went occasionally to see what it was like; but a peculiar fatality attended it. To maintain its attractions constant changes of performance and "sensational" exhibitions must be provided, and the proprietors could not make it pay. Among the excitements of Cremorne were the periodical insolvency of its entrepreneurs. Fortunately, perhaps, for our moral and social progress, the public bal masqué did not take any definite hold on the class of persons whom it was most likely to injure, and though such entertainments were frequently attempted, they eventually became, like the modern bal de l'opéra in Paris, very dreary affairs, in which the performers were mostly of a low and degraded class, appearing in meaningless costumes, and adding to their ignorance the extravagant imbecility produced by intoxication. The at tempt to introduce the Parisian fashion of holding these assemblies at our theatres failed, as it deserved to do, but not before it had been associated with a serious loss upon the public, for even as early as March, 1856, one of the most calamitous results of a night's entertainment of this description was the destruction of the Royal Italian Opera House at Covent Garden by fire, so suddenly that in two hours the stately fabric was in ruins. During the operatic recess Mr. Gye, the lessee of the theatre, had sublet it to a performer of sleightof-hand feats, who called himself Professor Anderson, and was known as "The Wizard of the North." He brought his short season to a close by an entertainment described as a "grand carnival complimentary benefit and dramatic gala, to commence on Monday morning and terminate with a bal masqué on Tuesday night." On the last day of the show the amusements proceeded with animation, and if with freedom still with decorum, until, as the night advanced, the more respectable or cautious withdrew, and the disreputable yielded to the temptation of excitement and wine. After midnight the theatre is said to have presented a scene of undisguised indecency, drunkenness, and vice, such as the lowest places of resort have rarely witnessed. Between four and five o'clock the professor thought it time to close the orgies, and commanded the band to play the national anthem. The gas at the same time was turned down a little to warn the revellers to depart. At this moment the gasfitter discovered fire issuing from the cracks of the ceiling, and amid the wildest shrieking and confusion the drunken, panic-stricken masquers rushed to the street. It was now hardly five o'clock, and yet in the few minutes which had elapsed the doom of the theatre was sealed. flames had burst through the roof, sending high up into the air columns of fire, which threw into bright reflection every tower and spire within the circuit of the metropolis, brilliantly illuminating the whole fabric of St. Paul's and throwing a flood of light across Waterloo Bridge, which set out in bold relief the dark outline of the Surrey Hills. This glare operated as a speedy messenger in The bringing up the fire-engines from every quarter of London at a tearing gallop to the scene of conflagration. There was no want of water, but neither engines nor water were of any avail in saving the property. The theatre blazed within its four hollow walls like a furnace, and at half-past five o'clock the roof fell in with a tremendous crash. The building was uninsured, no office having been willing to grant a policy after the fire of 1808. Mr. Gye had effected an insurance on his properties to the amount of £8000, and Mr. Anderson to the amount of £2000. Mr. Braidwood, the experienced superintendent of the London fire establishment, was of opinion that the fire had originated from spontaneous combustion among the masses of waste stuff accumulated in the workshops-an opinion strengthened by the evidence of Mr. Grieve, the scenepainter, who stated that on a previous occasion he had called attention to a heap of such materials allowed to gather, and which, when removed by his authority, were found to be too hot for handling. The theatre was not rebuilt till May, 1858. But though many extravagances arose out of the changes in public customs, there were many indications of a remarkable improvement in our popular amusements. The grand promenade concerts, over which M. Jullien presided, have already been mentioned, and they had been effectual not only in popularizing much of the best music, but in introducing some of the best performers in Europe to large audiences of the middle and even the decent lower classes in London. From all parts of England people came to "Jullien's concerts" at Covent Garden Theatre, and along with the performances of oratorios by the members of two harmonic societies at Exeter Hall, this "monstre orchestra" may be said to have developed a taste for the execution on a grand scale of good vocal and instrumental music. M. Jullien had but a short career. He died in an asylum for the insane in Paris, and his successors scarcely maintained the attractions which had made his concerts so famous, but performances by large orchestras and "monstre" concerts of various kinds were not dependent on any particular REFINED AMUSEMENTS-CONCERTS-ALBERT SMITH. 9 conductor, and associated "choirs," includ- | given with an easy rapidity which carried the ing those of Sunday scholars and various societies, repeatedly appeared at the Crystal Palace and at Exeter Hall. At the former place the great "Handel centenary," which was celebrated by a performance of the great composer's works, was an important event. It lasted three days, the 20th, 21st, and 22d of June, 1859. The central transept was converted into a vast concert hall 360 feet long by 216 wide, containing an area of 77,000 feet, and there were also several tiers of galleries. The choir numbered 2765 persons, the band 393. On the first day above 17,000 persons were present, on the second 18,000, and on the third nearly 27,000. The receipts of the three days were above £33,000 and the expenses about £18,000. Thenceforward the Handel Festival became an annual celebration, and was looked forward to by large numbers of persons in London with as much interest as the annual musical festivals in some of our cathedral cities excite in the inhabitants of those districts, and the musical connoisseurs who attend the performances. It is scarcely possible to refer to the numerous and varied forms of public amusement which seem to have made this period the commencement of a new era in the art of "entertainment," without mentioning the charming descriptions and humorous sketches of character by Mr. Albert Smith at the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly. Albert Smith, already well known as a witty journalist and novelist, whose contributions to Punch and other periodicals had often made the world laugh, was also distinguished for genial bonhomie, an attractive presence, and for that rare and valuable art of becoming in a moment on good terms with his audience, which is certain to command success for a lecturer. His entertainments were humorous, but graphic and striking descriptions of the journey to Switzerland and the Bernese Oberland, especially to Chamounix: of the ascent of Mont Blanc, and,- -as a separate lecture, of the overland route to Hong Kong. The course of his "lectures" was diversified, not only by excellent panoramic views painted by Mr. Beverley, but by stories, sketches of character, and original songs, all audience with him from beginning to end. He was perfectly familiar with the scenes he described, and the characters he portrayed were familiar to the audience. Perhaps his was at one time the most popular entertainment in London for refined and educated people, and as he himself used archly to observe, numbers of persons would attend it and would secure seats for their families, who would on no account enter a theatre to witness a regular dramatic performance. The queen and the royal family were particularly delighted with Mr. Albert Smith's performance, and the Prince Consort notices it in his journal with the words "very amusing" appended to the entry which appears among much graver matters. The lectures which had delighted London, and had made the fortune of Chamounix, by sending thousands of English travellers thither, were continued and repeated with almost undiminished success, till, unhappily, the genial author and raconteur was almost worn out, and though a robust man, he fell into ill-health, and to the great grief of a wide circle of friends to whom he was much endeared, died at the age of forty-four, on the 22d of May, 1860. It may be mentioned that Mr. Albert Smith had married Miss Mary Keeley, the daughter of the famous comedian, and herself well known as an actress at the Adelphi Theatre. Numerous entertainments of a similar elegant and refined description attracted considerable audiences. Lectures on science at the Royal Institution, where Professor Faraday showed brilliant experiments, were supplemented by others at various institutions, and notably at the "Polytechnic" in Regent Street, a great resort for juveniles whose parents or guardians believed in combining instruction with amusement, and therefore were willing to devote a long evening to the diving-bell machinery in motion, the diorama, a lecture on chemistry, a great gas microscope reflecting objects on a screen by means of a magic lantern, and a series of songs in the nature of an "entertainment" to accompany the beautiful series of dissolving views. The "Polytechnic" had formerly had a rival in the "Adelaide Gallery," near the Lowther cages. The wild animals were removed, and on the space occupied by the orchestra and the grand-stand a large music-hall was erected, composed chiefly of glass and iron. Among the conspicuous features of the time was the engagement of some of the smaller music-halls and minor theatres for Sunday evening religious services, and the Surrey Hall, which would accommodate a very large congregation, was hired by the followers of a preacher who had gained great notoriety for his original manuer of address, his marvellously effective delivery, and the religious fervour which gave remarkable force to his appeals, and attracted numbers of people, many of whom travelled a considerable distance to listen to his discourses. Arcade, but this having been closed, was trans- | phant house, the lions' dens, and the monkeys' formed by an Italian confectioner into a large café and restaurant. It may be regarded as another sign of the change which had become apparent in our public customs, that a complete alteration seemed to have taken place in our method of providing refreshment for the increased numbers of people who took their meals away from home. French and German restaurants were numerous in several parts of London, and the hot, stuffy tavern with its chops and steaks, or the sordid, greasy cook's shop, with its dingy boxes and coarse service, were to a great extent superseded by spacious and convenient dining-rooms and cafés, where agreeable articles of food and either tea, coffee, or the lighter continental wines could be procured. The conclusion of the commercial treaty with France by increasing the consumption of the light clarets and Burgundies gave a fresh impetus to the business of the restaurant in London, and it was noticeable that light bitter ales were also superseding the heavier beers as light wines had displaced port and sherry, while the consumption of tea, coffee, and chocolate vastly increased. The name of Mr. C. H. Spurgeon has now for nearly a quarter of a century been associ ated with a religious "revival" which was enduring in its effects, perhaps because it was never associated with the fanatic extravagances which have too often disfigured and ultimately disorganized some more startling efforts to awaken the consciences and influence the lives of the working-classes. Mr. Spurgeon, who was a young student belonging to the Baptist connection, began his work while he was still a boy, and he soon developed rare powers as an open-air preacher in addressing large and casual assemblies. In a short time he was notorious, but he soon afterwards became famous. Possessing a magnificent voice, which could be heard even by a large assembly in a field or any other open space, and a remarkable power of illustrating his meaning by references, often full of dry peculiar humour,-to the common experiences of his audience, or the ordinary objects and occurrences of everyday life, he rapidly attained great popularity, and at the same time became the mark for much misplaced witticism and a good deal of suspicion. There had been no such sudden success in arresting the attention of the common people since the earlier days of Wesleyan Methodism, and Mr. Spurgeon, keeping to the regular method of ministration observed by the body to which he Among the most attractive resorts in London, the Surrey Zoological Gardens in Walworth had held a conspicuous place as the resort of middle-class families. The grounds were extensive and picturesque, there was a very good collection of wild animals, birds, and reptiles, and the grand feature of the place was a broad lake, on the further side of which rose a huge canvas structure like the scene at a theatre, which was painted to represent the latest locality that could be most effectively associated with a great pyrotechnic display. Mount Vesuvius, the Bombardment of Canton, and eventually the taking of Sebastopol, attracted crowds of eager spectators, who, after listening to a good concert by the band interspersed with more or less patriotic songs, witnessed the spectacle which usually began with a balloon ascent and ended with the tremendous discharge of a "set piece" of great brilliancy. The time came, however, when the grounds were to be absorbed into the suburban ring of buildings, and rows of villas took the place formerly devoted to the ele-belonged, did not profess to be a revivalist, |