AN UNREHEARSED SENSATION.

Patea Mail, Volume XI, Issue 132, 1 March 1886, Page 2

AN UNREHEARSED SENSATION.

Theatrical circles in London arc ringing with particulars of an extraordinary occurrence. It appears that one night recently, after the performance in one of the loading theatres, a quarrel broke out on the stage hot ween two gentlemen largely interested in its management. Blows were exchanged, and ihe partisans of the respective rivals took sides, with the consequence of a free fight. A wed known comedian at the theatre interposed with an appeal to the principals to settle their differences in a more suitable place. A challenge was then delivered by one gentleman to ihe other to a battle royal on the Thames Embankment. The challenge was accep'ed and a movement in that direction was made in all the energy of hot blood. It was midnight. The whole staff of the theatre turned out, forming a goodly company of actors, scenes shifters,box openers, fiddlers, property men, call boys, costumiers, and dressers, and including a sprinkling of ladies. A ring was formed on the great Ponlevard, in a quiet section not likely to be interrupted by the police. But though the gentleman who had uttered the challenge duly reduced his apparel to n pair of dress trousers and a white shirt and waited to begin hostilities, rampant with a noble pusssion, discreet friends of the challenged happily spoilt the affair by carrying their man off to the arms of his wile and the shelter of his home. Finding the fight was not to come off, the assailant, after a vain endeavour to work off his superfluous passion upon someone else, dressed himself, and this unrohearsod scene in a play of real life came impotcntly to a close.