eir actual size) than I had hoped for. The
Duke was at Derby, and no end of minor radiances. Into the room at
Newcastle (where Lord Carlisle was by the bye) they squeezed six
hundred people, at twelve and sixpence, into a space reasonably capable
of holding three hundred. Last night, in a hall built like a theatre,
with pit, boxes, and gallery, we had about twelve hundred--I dare say
more. They began with a round of applause when Coote's white waistcoat
appeared in the orchestra, and wound up the farce with three deafening
cheers. I never saw such good fellows. Stanny is their fellow-townsman;
was born here; and they applauded his scene as if it were himself. But
what I suffered from a dreadful anxiety that hung over me all the time,
I can never describe. When we got here at noon, it appeared that the
hall was a perfectly new one, and had only had the slates put upon the
roof by torchlight over night. Farther, that the proprietors of some
opposition rooms had declared the building to be unsafe, and that there
was a panic in the town about it; people having had their money back,
and being undecided whether to come or not, and all kinds of such
horrors. I didn't know what to do. The horrible responsibility of
risking an accident of that awful nature seemed to rest wholly upon me;
for I had only to say we wouldn't act, and there would be no chance of
danger. I was afraid to take Sloman into council lest the panic should
infect our men. I asked W. what he thought, and he consolingly observed
that his digestion was so bad that death had no terrors for him! I went
and looked at the place; at the rafters, walls, pillars, and so forth;
and fretted myself into a belief that they really were slight! To crown
all, there was an arched iron roof without any brackets or pillars, on a
new principle! The only comfort I had was in stumbling at length on the
builder, and finding him a plain practical north-countryman with a foot
rule in his pocket. I took him aside, and asked him should we, or could
we, prop up any weak part of the place: especially the dressing-rooms,
which were under our stage, the weight of which must be heavy on a new
floor, and dripping wet walls. He told me there wasn't a stronger
building in the world; and that, to allay the apprehension, they had
opened it, on Thursday night, to thousands of the working people, and
induced them to sing, and beat with their feet, and make every possible
trial of the vibration. Accor