AMERICAN LECTURERS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5251, 22 January 1878, Page 3

AMERICAN LECTURERS.

Tlio San Francisco Bulletin supplies some interesting information relating to popular American lecturers and their platform earnings. The information is given on the authority of J. B. Pond, of Boston, under whose auspices nearly all the distinguished lecturers of the country appear. Mr. Pond, on being interviewed by the Bulletin’s reporter, says : Mr. Beecher will certainly come to San Francisco next April. Tile contract is signed and sealed. Beecher will just capture this country. I know him ; he is the greatest lecturer above ground. I travelled 30,000 miles with him last season, and have receipts for 52,000d01. paid to him. Go wherever you will, people will come to sec him. In the small towns of Illinois, where only a few stores and houses are visible, ho gets 700dol. and SOOdol. audiences. The people come from the farms and settlements of the surrounding country. The profits on the Beecher lectures must have amounted to something like 30,000d01. Referring to other heroes of the platform, Mr. Proud said : I oltered Longfellow a thousand dollars a night to lecture, but he’s not in the business. He can make more money writing. Whittier won’t lecture for love or money. It’s something against his principles. Wendell Phillips has delivered his lectures on the “ Lost Arts ” for twenty years without changing a word. Beecher never delivers the same lecture twice. Bret Harte is not a success as a lecturer ; he cannot make money on the platform. I offered Mark Twain OOOdols. a night to come to California, but he prefers to lecture in Now Eng-

land for 350d015. a night, which he readily gets. Nast ia a popular lecturer, who can make 500dols. a night. Next to Beecher he is the greatest favorite on the platform. Oliver Wendell Holmes never lectures, but simply reads, but he makes money and always gets good houses, Kate Field is hard to engage for a regular series of lectures. She talks only when, she wants to. Mr. Livermore ia a great success in the East. Thomas Bailey Aidrich is not a lecturer, neither ia Mr. Howells of the “Atlantic Monthly.” John S, Gough still maintains his eminence on the platform. He has made money enough to be a rich man, but he gives away 10,000dol. a year in charities. He has been lecturing forty years. William Parsons is a brilliant lecturer. He comes to America every season, and clears from SOOOdol. to 10,000dol. each time. R. J. Burdette, the funny paragraph writer of the Burlington Ilawlceye, has got the rostrum fever, and is arranging a course of lectures under the direction of the Boston Lyceum Bureau. James T. Fields speaks with authority on. persons and things connected with literature. He has twelve lectures on the noted literary men of the country. Schuyler Colfax has cleared 100,000dol. from his lecture on Abraham Lincoln, and it is still in great demand. The Rev. He Witt Talmage has gleaned something like 15,000d01. from the lecture field. Miss Helen Potter last season gave her readings and impersonations of living celebrities 159 times, and realised about 18,000dol. Julia Ward Howe has received many complimentary notices from the London Press, Her efforts are mainly in the direction of woman suffrage. Fred, Houglas continues to draw good houses iu the New England and Radical States ; even in Baltimore and other cities further south the “ white folks ” go to hear him.