Volume 1. Number 16
This weeks cover is an engraving after a painting called “Interieur Pompeien” by Pierre Olivier Joseph Coomans, a Belgian artist who was living in Naples in the mid 19th century and was inspired by the excavations in Pompeii to paint in what is known as Neo-Pompeian style. This picture may have been celebrated in 1870 but we can find no trace of it on google in 2020.
A Seizure behind the Scenes. Lady Gay Spanker resents the intrusion of the revenue officers.
Lady Gay Spanker is a character in the comedic play, London Assurance, written by Dion Boucicault and first performed at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in 1841. The play has most recently been revived by the Royal National Theatre in March 2010, directed by Nicholas Hytner and featuring Simon Russell Beale as Sir Harcourt and Fiona Shaw as Lady Gay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Assurance
This story on page 4 relates to a performance of the play being put on at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1870. The manager of the production or theatre (which, is not clear from the article) was said to have absconded with the takings before the end of the production ahead of the arrival of some Brooklyn revenue collectors looking to collect “Government taxes”. Upon finding that all the theatre receipts had been taken by the manager the revenue officers proceeded to seize all the baggage of the theatre company in lieu of payments due.
This was of great concern to the actors whose baggage was being seized and the story suggests that some of them channeled their character to protest. Thus the actor John E. Owens who played the part of Mark Meddle, a lawyer started to serve fictitious subpoenas and the actress (unnamed) playing Lady Gay Spanker, a horse riding virago, “promised the officers a taste of her horsewhip” A shout went out from one cast member (Mark Smith, playing the part of Sir Harcourt) for the actor playing as ‘Cool’ the valet of the dissolute Charles Courtly and “receiving no answer, learned that a gentleman answering to his description had just passed through the auditorium, carrying a small black bag under his coat.” That actor was Dolly Davenport, an actor and stage manager well known in his day who initially trained as a lawyer per his parents wishes. The way the story is written leaves some ambiguity about Dolly Davenports role in this story. Was he just looking after his own personal property or was he the ‘missing’ manager with the receipts?
The story ends thus “Things were beginning to look blue, when Mr. E. L. Davenport (not a relative of Dolly) stepped forward and explained to the gentlemen of the revenue the position in which they were placed, remarking, that as employees their property could not be seized for the debts of the manager. the eloquence of Mr. Davenport, however, availed him nothing, and he had to become responsible for the amount due to the Government before the baggage was released.”
Postscript. An indicator of the veracity of newspaper reports from the 19th century is this from the Daily Alta California of January 11th 1868 some 20 odd months earlier than the above! As Mark Twain famously didn’t say “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”
DEATH OF MR. A. H. DAVENPORT.
A telegram from New Orleans announces the death, in that city, of the long popular young comedian Mr. A. H. Davenport. The Crescent City has always been a favorite but fatal resort with Mr. Davenport; he was always liked by its public, but his health was never first into there. Two years ago he lingered in the Sister’s Hospital in that city, almost at the point of death, but kind attentions spared him. at that time, although it would appear that the disease, consumption, which then prostrated, finally carried him off. Mr. Davonports lasst engagement in New York was at the New York Theatre, and his last appearance in the vicinity was made as Ray Trafford, in ” Under the Gaslight,” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. At the time of his decease he was engaged as stage manager at the Academy of Music in New Orleans, and only a few evenings before his death, appeared as The Stranger. He was a native of North Stamford, Conn., and his real name was Adolphus Davenport Hoyt. https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DAC18680111.2.10&e=——-en–20–1–txt-txIN——–1
The Spy Mania Continues in Paris.
Two English Girls Handcuffed and marched through the Streets
“The Spy mania still continues in Paris. To wear whiskers is to sympathise with Prussia, and blue-eyed and fair-haired Englishmen and women are special objects of suspicion, and are being constantly arrested as Prussians. At the Police Prefecture an official is fully employed in receiving arrested foreigners and dismissing them with an apology. We, this week, engrave a scene described from inside Paris. Several prisoners, all foreigners were led through the streets under guard, and all tied; even children being tightly pinioned by the arms. Two handsome young ladies of eighteen years, both hand-cuffed, were of the number. Although afterwards released with the usual apology, the defenceless girls were exposed to constant insults: the mob actually assailing them with jeers and even threats.” from page 4, column 4 .
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