LONDON.

Mt Benger Mail, Volume 17, Issue 850, 22 August 1896, Page 3

LONDON.

[From the Evening Stars Correspondent.] London, June 26. SIR AUGUSTUS HARRIS. The death of Sir Augustus Harris was, like his whole life, intensely dramatic, in faet in theatrical parlance, and as he would have said himself, "a thoroughly effective curtain." Barely a fortnight ago I saw him in all his glory, and looking apparently perfectly well. This was at the great reception and dance which he gave at Drury-Lane to the Chamber of Commerce delegates. The evening commenced with 'Faust' at the opera, a gala performance, displaying all the resources of Covent Garden. Then we crossed the road to the National Theatre, transformed for the nonce into the mest magnificent of ball rooms. Lady Harris received the guests blazing with diamonds, while Sir <*us as usual did four or five things at the same moment. Never was there a readier organiser in small matters. On this evening his private secretaries and other subordinates were never far off, and perpetually in the intervals of conversation with this guest or that he would fall back a step and whisper a direction anent the manipulation of the divisions of dancers or the arrangements for supper. Sir Gus dearly loved driving six horses abreast, but that difficult and exciting exercise has killed him. He suffered from Kidney complaint, and some timo ago his doctors told him he must rest or die. "I mean to rest directly I've seen Drury Lane autumn piece through," said the manager, and—well, he's kept his Avoid. Mr Cecil Raleigh and Sir Augustus were at Folkestone revising the final scenes of the play for old Drury when the latter was taken ill. The medical men feared a fatal issue from the first, and soon had to say as much. The patient accepted the inevitable characteristically. "Now mind," he said to his family, " whatever happens to me don't let the public be disappointed. If you countermand an opera or stop a performance on my account I'll haunt you." Sir Augustus died peacefully in the presence of his wife and several intimate friends. Shortly before the end Lady Harris asked him if he wanted anything. " I want a long, long sleep," he murmured. "Don't let anyone disturb me." And upon t iiis appropriate tag to his busy life drama Providence rang down the curtain. It is a pity that Sir Augustus did not live long enough to serve hie term as Lord Mayor of London. He looked forward to that year being the crown and apex of his career. " You have no idea," he used to say, " how many possibilities the part of Lord Mayor offers. I shall give 'em quite a new reading of the rule. I shall spread myself out. My Ninth of November show will be the most magnificent London has ever witnessed." And we can quite believe it would have been.

To my mind Sir Augustus Harris never showed to such advantage as when tixiug up the pantomime at Drury Lane. I witnessed the dress rehearsal last December. It began at noon and lasted with brief intermissions till three next morning. Throughout that entire period Sir Augustus was watchful, alert, tireless, Argus-eyed. You never knew where he was, but you always found him vigilant. One moment, despite heavy fur coat and top hat, he was showing Dan Leno how he wanted the breakdown done, the next he was shouting instructions as to the limelights from the back of the dress circle, and the next discovering that no reference to Cinderella's pumpkin appeared in the text. When the manager first came on the stage at noon a perfect storm of excited subordinates, actors, actresses, supers, and what not surrounded and swamped him, one out-bawling the other. Sir Augustus seemed to pay absolutely no attention. He was absorbed in certain imperfections in the scene, and brushed off his querists like flies. Yet no one seemed offended. "Why," I asked, "is that?" "Well," was the reply, "Harris has two secretaries standing benind him, who took a shorthand note of the complaints. Each will be at once referred to the proper department and dealt with."

A.writer in ' Modern Art and Literature' drew this picture of Sir Augustus Harris superintending the production of a pautomime :—" It is at his own pantomime rehearsals that the vitality and go of the Drury Lace manager are displayed to the fullest advantage. He is at his post early and late, wearing a black skull cap, in an easy chair by the side of the prompt table. Every three or four minutes he flies out of his easy chair as if he were propelled by a catapult. In an instant he seems to be all over the stage at once, now arranging a tableau, now teaching a chorus girl to throw action into her business, and now drilling a procession as it descends a big flight of palace steps and fills the Drury Laue stage. Then, worn out, he sinks back in his easy chair and sleeps soundly, through all the noise and din, for exactly ten minutes. He has the power of commanding these tenminute snatches of sleep at any moment, and when the last full dress rehearsals, which sometimes last until four o'clock in the morning, are in progress he takes these ten-minute naps at intervals of about two hours, waking bright and refreshed and instantly throwing himself into the business of the scene. He acts with the actors, sings with the singers, shouts with the chorus, makes himself heard above all the roar and din of the clumsy stage carpenters and unintelligent supers, and then suddenly his voice goes with a snap. The strain on his vocal chords has been too great, and he cau only speak in a low, hoarse whisper. Then he sinks back in his easy chair exhausted, beckons his faithful stage manager to his Bide, and gasps out: ' Shout at 'em for me, Collins ; I'm done.' " The amazing vitality of the man would brock no denial. During bis illness in the winter of 1893-94 he made constant use of the telephone that connects the stage of Drury Lane with his bedroom. Lying there with his temperature over 103 he followed the rehearsals of the pantomime with the greatest care, and minutely criticised every detail which he could command by the mere hearing of it. t'f.KMENT seorr*H tkihitl. Clement Scott, in the course of au interesting memoir of his old friend, says : He was born to command and to be a leader of men, and there never wa3 an officer more boncstlv beloved by the men he led. I have known him as an actor, defiant, breezy, defying obstaole or ill-luek ; I have had the honor of his friendship from the hour he became inaiiagcr of the historic theatre of Drury Lane; I have written plays with him, and know—none better —his swiftness of judgment, his unerring tact, his merry look when he cut and hacked mv best-loved sentences, and stbopod the impending debate with a roar of laughter; I have Been btra conduct tbe rehearsal of play after play, pantomime after pantomime, watching him act scene after scene, and character after character as well as they could be instantaneously acted, at lay rate giving those on the stage the very impression they wanted; and I am convinoed that, in the long history of amusement, it would be difficult to quote a more capable or remarkable man. _ . . . The extraordinary i»ower of doing two 02 three things together, and doing them all well, belongs to few men. It certainly belonged to Augustus Harris. At one and the same moment he would be dictating a letter of grave commercial importance and discussing different topks with two distinct people. 1 his power of fjMOtnttMi and variety I have never seen equalled in any man of my time. How well I remember, man/ years ago, when ho summoned me to lK to see the ' Deuiae' of Alexandre Drunas, a riay on which he had set his heart, and over wfiS be invariably shed eopfous tears. We by side in (be ittlll rf tt» Tfettj*

Fran<;aiß, and I was surprised to find that he had the text of the French play in his hand. " Do you want to know what I have got this book for ?" he asked mc in his droll fashion, witli the well-known twinkle in his eye and the inevitable laugh. "We are going to collaborate to-night. I shall cut the play to-night, and you shall write it to-morrow." So there we sat, both impressed, both affected, and, whilst I stared and took the whole scene in, away he worked with his pencil on the printed text in the Btalls—a most heterodox proceeding at the Comedie Framaise - and as we supped after the play he tossed to me the curtailed text, two acts having been run into one by him as the play proceeded, and every speech shortened in a masterly fashion, and said: " There you arc. There is your scenario; sow write it." This book is one of rny treasured possessions, and this is an example of the particular brilliancy and rapidity of thought and judgment which he posse'sed in all matters connected with thn stage. lam confident that this opinion will be endorsed by every author who has had the great good luck of his assistance and sympathy. It has been sa ; d, and unkindly said, that Augustus Harris had no right to put up his name as the author of the Drury Lane and other dramas. In my opinion he had every right to do so. If he did not give the actual plot from start to finish, he saw where it was weak and at once made it strong, and I never knew a man who had such a gift in the art of using the blue peneil. He would have made as good an editor as a manager. And it was all done with such good nature and charm, witli a laugh and never a sneer, so that to collaborate with him was at once a personal delight and a dramatic education For he brought to bis work every gift of heredity, business tact, and practice that a man so circumstanced could require. He was the son of one "f the be?t stage managers the English dramatic and operatic Btage has ever seen. He was well educated, and was brought up in a business house as a clerk. He went on to the Btage and learned the rudiments of acting in order that he might teach others to act, and he became manager of Drury Lane when a mero boy. Work, incessant work, killed Augustus Harris. He was determined to be the Alexander and Napoleon of his era in the art of amusement. He was never tired of having new worlds to conquer, new diiliculties to combat. Contrary to all advice and warning, he incessantly burned the candle at both ends, and was never really happy unlcßs ho had far too many ironß iu the fire. Because there were no more operas and theatres to manage, he turned his attention to the entertainment of variety, and, after being connected witb the Palaue Theatre, ended up as managing director of the Olympia, giving to lua brother directors the fruits of his remarkable experience, and fairly astonishing them with his marvellous energy. There never was a less narrow-minded man ; no one ever lived who was less a time-server and sycophant. He was popular with the public and loved to see them amused in the best possible maunerat thecheapest possible cost, but it did not follow that because he was the director of Italian opera and the largest theatres iu London that he ehculd refuse to give his aid to the restoration and rehabilitation of the once despised music hall. l>ut the result of one man doing far more than one man's allotted day's work, overtaxing his strength, defying nature, laughing at fate, was inevitable. We who knew him and loved his kindly, generous, and affectionato nature saw the end not so very far ahead. Again and again he fell sick, again and again ho recovered. Physicians and surgeons warned him ; they dosed him and operated on him. But he was not the man to be frightened away from the life that to him mcaut work and nothing but work. A man, however splendid his constitution may be, cannot be a manager of several theatres in London and the province', a civic dignitary, the Master of a city company, a devoted Mason, an author, and a general adviser to everybody without paying the penalty long before the time. He was never really at rest. With shorthand writers at his bedside every morning and his elbow all day, with rehearsals to attend to and plays to write and arrange, with the everlasting Drury lane pantomime ever in his head, and ever determined to beat his own record, with an uucowjuerablc spirit of jestlcssncss that drove him one day to Paris, the next to Vienna, the third to Rome, and when home again up to Newcastle-on-Tyne or Edinburgh, it is a miracle that he did not break down long before. We who watched him and were constantly with him saw with alarm those sudden sleeping fits in the middle of an animated conversation, and foretold the early close of a very marvellous career. But our grief is not the less poignant, nor is our regret the less sincere, now that the inevitable has arrived. The English-speaking world has lost in Augustus Harris a very remarkable man, a splendid instance of the pioneer, the temperament of an ardent colonist, for he broke new ground everywhere, an unflinching character, and one who will live long in the history of the English stage and in the memory of the healthy amusements of the people. But his loss to his friends and comrades who are left behind is to them far more sad and irreparable. A better, truer, or more faithful friend iu success and adversity no man ever had. When he once grasped the hand he anderstood the meaning of that hand grasp, and never took it back. Lightly rest the turf above him, the most loyal of comrades, the most unselfish of men, the best of friends! "He was a man, take him for all in all. We shall not look upon his like again !"

PROFESSIONAL PHILATELISTS

Those who were like myself under the impression that the craze for stamp collecting had waned to nothing may be surprised to learn that there are still fifty first-class firms in London alone engaged in the business, and thousands of "gentlemen dealers," peers, <J.C.s, officers, doctors, and solicitors. The annual turnover of Mr Palmer, who has the oldest business in the trade, runs into many thousands of pounds. His present stock is worth £OO,OOO. Asked by an interviewer recently to furnish some statistics, he said: " Thirty years ago, when I was the only stamp dealer in London, I sold about 10,000 stamps a year ; last year, with many competitors, I sold over a hundred million." "A hundred million?" "Yes, most of them in large batches, of course. One customer alone bought '20,000,000 of the commoner varieties for America. He wanted them to paper the walls of houses and public buildings. The prices of average batches are from £IO,OOO to £'2,000. The walls of this room, you see, are papered with stamps. They arc all counterfeits, and they number 70,000. If they were genuine they would be worth a million pounds. That sum has been paid for them by somebody or other, so that this room alone represents swindles to the extent of a million sterling" " How do you count these vast quantities'.' : ' "By weight in sacks of a thousand/ 1 " What are the most expensive ■tamps?" "Some of the American local varieties fetch from £'2so to £SOO. A pair of post office Mauritius are worth £6,000 ; a set of the five British <iuiaua, first issue, 1850, will fetch £I,OOO. Of course, stamps must be in 'mint' perfect condition to realise these prices. The most valuable English stamp is the ninepenuy strawcolored Queen's head with hair line of IS 12 ; that is worth £30." " Can you tell me, Mr Palmer, which is supposed to be the finest collections in the world?" "Mr Ferraris, in Paris, is the finest of all. It is worth £250,000, and contains about 250,000 specimens. Mr Ferrari pays a secretary £SOO a year to keep the collection up to date. The Duke of York's is valued at between £30,000 and £40,000, Mr Rothschild's about £IOO,OOO, the late Czar's £l-30,000. I believe the last is now the property of the new Czar. And that reminds me that collectors are clamoring for a new Russian 6tamp. A whole-hearted philatelist revels in assassinations and deaths of monarchs and presidents—they mean a new issue."