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Auckland Star, Volume II, Issue 417, 12 May 1871, Page 2

One evening lately Professor Anderson (the " Wizard of the North"), in the course of his performance at the Athenaeum, Sunderland, took occasion to make repeated reference to the continental war, to Biamarck, Germany, and the Germans, in anything but; complimentary terms. In the front seats were the German Consul (Mr. Weiner), his wife, and a party of friends. Another gentleman, the head of a German firm in Sunderiand, rose and gave a denial of the statements of the "Wizard j" and this seemed only the more to irritate him. Just before the close of the performance Mr. Anderson, stepping forward, and claiming to be independent of any one, and to hold opinions of his own, stated that his daughter there (pointing to Miss Anderson at the piano-forte) had declined to play the " Marseillaise" because of the presence of the German Consul. "Who," Mr. Anderson asked, "was the German Consul? What was he? He thanked him for his patronage, but no more." Mr. Anderson went on to say that the Germans should have been fighting for their country, and proceeded in a strain which again called up the German merchant, who protested that they had come

there to see the professor's tricks, and not to near his politics. A scane of confusion followed. The audience at the back part of the nail got on to the seats, some hissing the German _ merchant, and others the " Wizard j " °v dJ n tlie m^Bfc °^tne D("8e tne occupants of the front seats rose and took their departure including the German Consul and his friends. Ihe professor, excited, was declaiming from the stage, the German merchant was on his feet appealing for a hearing, when the "Wizard" fired a pistol, which caused a number of ducks confined in a tub on the stage to squatter out among the audience with a great din. The performance broke up amidst much disorder.— Scotsman.