n each table and half-a-dozen in a
brass chandelier. If Jack Briefless convoked his friends to oysters
and beer in his chambers, Pump Court, he would have twice as many. Let
us comfort ourselves by thinking that Louis Quatorze in all his glory
held his revels in the dark, and bless Mr. Price and other Luciferous
benefactors of mankind for abolishing the abominable mutton of our
youth."

The first gas-lamp appeared in London in the year 1809, Pall Mall
being the first and for some years the only street so illuminated.
Gradually, however, the new mode of lighting made way, and stole from
the streets into manufactories and public buildings, and, finally,
into private houses. The progress was not very rapid however; for we
find that gas was not introduced into the Mall of St. James's Park
until the year 1822. It is difficult to fix the exact date when gas
foot-lights appeared upon the stage. But in the year 1828 an explosion
took place in Covent Garden Theatre by which two men lost their lives.
Great alarm was excited. The public were afraid to re-enter the
theatre. The management published an address in which it was stated
that the gas-fittings would be entirely removed from the interior of
the house, and safer methods of illumination resorted to. In order to
effect the necessary alterations the theatre was closed for a
fortnight, during which the Covent Garden company appeared at the
English Opera House, or Lyceum Theatre, and an address was issued on
behalf of the widows of the men who had been killed by the explosion.
In due time, however, the world grew bolder on the subject, and gas
reappeared upon the scene. Some theatres, however (being probably
restricted by the conditions of their leases), were very tardy in
adopting the new system of lighting. Mr. Benjamin Webster, in his
speech in the year 1853, upon his resigning the management of the
Haymarket Theatre after a tenancy of fifteen years, mentions, among
the improvements he had originated during that period, that he had
"introduced gas for the fee of L500 a-year, and the presentation of
the centre chandelier to the proprietors."

The employment of gas-lights in theatres was strenuously objected to
by many people. In the year 1829 a medical gentleman, writing from
Bolton Row, and signing himself "Chiro-Medicus," addressed to a public
journal a remonstrance on the subject. He had met with several fatal
cases of apoplexy which had occurred in the theatres, or a few