ll at Chester gave him the idea
of this undertaking. It took very well at first, but in consequence of
complaints being made by the shopkeepers in the town that the dealers in
linen, instead of selling wholesale were carrying on an extensive retail
trade and injuring their business, the authorities stopped all further
traffic in it, and, after remaining some years unoccupied, it has of late
been converted into small tenements.

CHAPTER XII.

Thirty years ago Great Charlotte-street, at the Ranelagh-street end, was
a narrow, poorly-built thoroughfare. On the left hand side, looking
south, between Elliot-street and the present coach-builders'
establishment, there was a timber-yard, in which stood a small wooden
theatre, known as "Holloway's _Sans Pareil_," and truly it was _Sans
Pareil_, for surely there was nothing like it, either in this town or
anywhere else. Both inside and outside it was dirty and dingy. There
were only a pit and gallery, the latter taking the place of boxes in
other theatres; and, yet the scenery was excellent, the actors, many of
them, very clever, and the getting up of the pieces as good as could be
in so small a place. The pantomimes at Christmas were capital. The
charges of admission were: to the pit 3d., and to the gallery, 6d. The
audiences, whether men or women, boys or girls, were the roughest of the
rough. The quantity of copper coin taken at the doors was prodigious;
and I am told that it occupied two persons several hours, daily, to put
the money up into the usual five-shilling packages. Mr. Holloway used to
stand at one door and his wife at the other, to receive the admission
money. When the audience was assembled, the former would go into the pit
and there pack the people, so that no space should be lost. He would
stuff a boy into one, or a little girl into another seat, and leave them
to settle down into their proper places; giving one a buffet and another
a knock on the head, just to encourage the others to keep order and be
obedient to his will and wish. There was no space lost in the pit of
Holloway's theatre, whatever there might be anywhere else. A thriving
business was carried on in this little bit of a theatre, and if the
highest class of performances was not produced, nothing at any time
offensive to order and morality was permitted.

I remember a good joke in which a gentlemen whom I knew, connected with
one of our newspapers, and a leading actress at the