"Whenever a pantomime or farce shall be advertised, the advanced prices shall be returned to those who do not choose to stay; and, on Thursday next, will be published the manager's reasons for his conduct in the present dispute."
This arrangement was very far from giving satisfaction, however, and the disturbance was renewed the next night. A country gentleman, who had distinguished himself by the warmth and violence of his expressions of disapproval, was forcibly removed by the constables from the upper boxes and carried before a magistrate, who, however, it would seem, declined to entertain the charge against the offender. The theatre was closed for two or three nights, and a notice appeared in the playbills: "The great damage occasioned by the disturbances makes it impossible to perform." The manager published an address to the public in _The General Advertiser_, setting forth a statement of the case and justifying his conduct.
He reminded the public that the extraordinary disturbances which had lately occurred greatly affected their diversions as well as his property. He apprehended that the reasons of complaint assigned were, "the exhibition of pantomimes, advanced prices, and insults on the audience." As to the first charge, he submitted that, however distasteful pantomimes might be to the delicacy of some judgments, yet they were suited to the taste of many others; and as the playhouse might be considered as the general mart of pleasure, it was only from the variety of entertainment the different desires of the public could be supplied. He urged that the receipts of the house were sufficient evidence that without the occasional performance of pantomimes he could not afford to produce plays of a higher class. With regard to the advance in prices, he hoped he should be thought justified in that measure, when the great increase in his expenses was considered. Further, he conceived he should be no longer the subject of the displeasure of the public, since he had complied with the demand that the advanced prices should be returned to those who quitted the theatre after the first piece, without waiting to see the pantomime. He denied that he had ever had any intention to insult the audience. The arrest of the gentleman in the upper boxes was not in consequence of his orders, nor was he in anyway acquainted with the fact until after the discharge of the prisoner. There had been a quarrel in the theatre and much confusion consequent upon some persons flinging the candles and sconces on the stage. He denied that he had employed "bruisers" to coerce the audience. The peace-officers, carpenters, and scenemen (which last, on account of the pantomime, were very numerous), and other servants of the theatre, had not appeared until the tumult was at its height. The benches were being torn up, and there were threats of storming the stage and demolishing the scenes. If any "bruisers" were in the pit, the manager presumed that they must have entered the house with the multitude who came in after the doorkeepers had been driven from their posts. Finally, he appealed to the public to pronounce whether, after the concession he had made, and the injury he had sustained, to the extent of several hundred pounds, they would persist in a course which would only deprive them of their diversions, the players of subsistence, and compel him to resign his property.