fore absent from town on the 19th April. The issue is thus narrowed to the 29th March and the 5th and 12th April.
6. From Mrs. Brown’s statement we learn that on the Saturday and Sunday preceding the wedding her son’s friend Aldridge slept at the house. The wedding took place on the 14th April. On the 12th April, therefore, Mrs. Brown was not alone. The only days, therefore, on which the occurrence, as described, could have taken place are the 29th March and 5th April.
At this point I feared for some time that my clue was at an end. This would, however, have been most unsatisfactory, as the possible error of a week in point of date would have seriously detracted from the trustworthiness of the entire case. The only possible chance of determining the point seemed to lie in ascertaining the precise date of the servant’s dismissal, and it at length occurred to me that this might be accomplished by means of the police records of the court before which she was carried. From them I found—
7. That the offence for which she was discharged was committed on Sunday, the 30th of April. On the 29th, therefore, she was still in Mrs. Brown’s house. The only day, therefore, on which Madame R**’s first seizure could have taken place as stated during Richard Brown’s stay in England, and on a night when Mrs. Brown was alone in the house, was the 5th of April.
The importance of this date, thus fixed, you will, I think, at once perceive.
ASTLEY’S.
If there was one place of amusement—an institution it may be termed—more sacred than another to Londoners in particular, and provincialists in general, one, more presumably probable to have withstood the changes of time and fashion, less likely to have succumbed to a novel and not very classical style of dramatic entertainment; that place most certainly was Astley’s. For though the remodelled theatre in Westminster Bridge Road is still associated with the name of its founder, yet an Astley’s without horses is as yet simply a misnomer, a shadow without a substance. It may be well, then, ere the last reminiscences of its former glories have utterly departed, while the smell of the saw-dust, the cracking of the whip, the contortions of the clown, and the laughter of the spectators still linger in our fond memories, to record a passing notice of this once popular place of amusement, and its able and enterprising founder.
Little more than a hundred years ago, George the Second, wishing to introduce light cavalry into the British army, commissioned Colonel Eliott, subsequently Lord Heathfield, the renowned defender of Gibraltar, to raise and discipline a regiment of this description of force. The comparatively small size of the men and horses, and the fact that a great number of tailors, then out of work, enlisted in the new regiment, caused it to be regarded with considerable contempt by the lower classes; while old military men regretted that the honour of the British arms should be endangered by trusting it in such seemingly feeble hands. Scarcely, however, had Eliott’s Light Horse, as it was recognised in the Army List, or the Tailors’ regiment as it was more generally termed, been a year embodied, before it was employed on active service; and its gallant conduct at the battle of Emsdorf removed all doubts of the capabilities and courage of the men composing it. Three years afterwards, on the return of peace, Eliott’s Light Horse presented to George the Third, at a review in Hyde Park, sixteen stand of colours they had taken from the enemy. “How can I express my admiration of such soldiers!” exclaimed the gratified monarch. “Give us the title of Royal, please your Majesty,” was the reply; and consequently, from that time, they were termed the Fifteenth King’s Royal Regiment of Light Dragoons.
One of the first recruits who enlisted in the gallant corps, was a lad only seventeen years of age, named Philip Astley, the son of a respectable tradesman at Newcastle-under-Lyme. This youth soon distinguished himself in the regiment, by his great activity and excellence in horsemanship; and by a peculiar power he exercised in training and subduing horses and other animals. Nor was he less noted for his presence of mind and intrepidity in action. By his spirited activity on the occasion of the upsetting of a boat, he saved a number of men and horses from being drowned, for which service he was promoted and rewarded in front of the regiment. At Emsdorf, he captured a royal standard of France with his own hands; and on a subsequent occasion, when in command of four men only, he charged a considerable body of hussars, and rescued the Prince of Brunswick, then lying wounded within the enemy’s lines. After serving nearly eight years, and attaining the rank of sergeant-major, beyond which he could not hope for further promotion, Astley applied for his discharge, and, on account of his distinguished services, it was at once granted. Moreover, General Eliott, learning that he intended to “better himself” by exhibiting feats of horsemanship, presented him with a magnificent white charger, as a token of approbation of his conduct as a man and a soldier. Astley received his discharge at Derby, in 1766, and he exhibited in the country for about two years, till he considered himself capable of appearing before a London assemblage of spectators. He then set up what he termed a Riding School—merely a piece of ground inclosed by a slight paling, near a pathway that led through fields from Blackfriars to Westminster Bridge, on the Surrey side of the river. The terminus of the South-Western Railway now nearly, if not exactly, covers the spot. The first bill of performance that he issued here is as follows:
Activity on horseback of Mr. Astley, Serjeant-Major in his Majesty’s Royal Regiment of Light Dragoons. Nearly twenty different attitudes will be performed on one, two, and three horses, every evening during the summer, at his riding-school. Doors to be open at four, and he will mount at five. Seats, one shilling: standing-places, sixpence.
