"J. H. MAPLESON.
"Subscribed and sworn to before me this 16th day of April A.D. 1886.
| "GEO. F. KNOX, "Notary Public." |
The suit having been promptly terminated in my favour (General Barnes wins all his cases, even when they are not quite as good as mine was) I had to pay a few dollars for law expenses, and the embargo on the music and baggage was raised. But we could not start on our long journey with something like ten dollars among the whole one hundred and sixty of us, and I had still many difficulties to contend with before I could make a start. In London or Paris I should have begun by parting with my valuable jewellery, but this I could not do in an American city without everyone getting at once to know of it. That jewellery cannot pass from hand to hand without some reasonable proof of ownership being given is undoubtedly an excellent thing, though it did not suit my particular case. In England we are such lovers of liberty that a low-class pawnbroker or a receiver of stolen goods is free to purchase or to accept as a pledge whatever may be offered to him without asking inconvenient questions, or troubling himself in any way as to how the property came into the hands of the person anxious to dispose of it. In America the vendor or pledger of any article of value must give his real name and address, and at the same time brings as reference some respectable person, whose name and address must also be given. This reminds me (if for a few moments I may be allowed to depart from the thread of my story) that in America spirits cannot legally be sold to anyone under the age of fifteen, nor under any circumstances to women. In England we are so wonderfully free that women and children may buy penn'orths of gin at any public-house; and one enterprising publican is said to have made a large fortune by establishing in his drink-den a metal counter low enough to suit the convenience of small children.
I was obliged to leave a fifty-pound ring at one hotel as security for the payment of a singer's bill, and, oddly enough, when this ring was afterwards forwarded me in a registered letter to New York it was seized at the moment of my opening the packet by a creditor, or rather a claimant, who, for a pretended debt, had procured an attachment against my effects; so that it was not until after I had gone through several formalities that I could get it finally into my possession.
I remember a case in which an American manager, whose receipts had been attached, made a point of putting the money, as it was paid at the doors, into his pockets, which in a very short time were laden with coin. To attach the money that a man carries in his pockets a special order known as a "garnishee" is necessary; and the attachment of money carried on the person cannot be obtained unless the bearer admits that he has it about him, or can be proved on sworn evidence to have made such an admission within the hearing of another person.
When an attachment has once been obtained the order of attachment can be sent on by telegraph to be enforced, wherever the person against whom it has been granted possesses property. On the other hand, as a counterbalancing advantage, a manager may pledge his receipts by telegraph, and one man may at any time send money to another by the same means at quite a nominal charge. Deposit the money at a telegraph office, and the clerk telegraphs to the office of the place where your correspondent is staying that a sum equal in amount to the one deposited is to be forthwith paid. Our post-office orders are issued at usurious rates, and within limited hours. One cannot, however, but foresee the day when we shall be reasonable enough in this, as in so many other matters of practical life, to imitate the Americans.
It was absolutely necessary for me at the last moment to part with a certain amount of jewellery, and this I contrived to do without, I hope, attracting too much attention. I was spared the annoyance of seeing the details of each separate sale recorded in the newspapers.
I calculated that the losses caused to me by Ravelli's preposterous conduct amounted to at least 10,000 dollars. At some of the cities along the great line of railway, where I had engaged to give performances, I was unable, having lost the dates that had been fixed, to get others; and at one city, where the manager gave me another date, he stopped the whole of the receipts; which he said were due to him as damages for the injury done to him by not performing on the evening originally appointed.
On the morning of our departure—our escape, I may say—from the city where, a year before, we had been so prosperous, and whence I had borne away not a small, but a very considerable fortune, I was awakened about one o'clock in the morning by a Chinaman, a negro, and several Italian choristers, all crying out for money. But I satisfied every claim before I left; and I was more astonished than delighted to find myself complimented on having done so by one of the San Francisco papers, in which it was pointed out that I could easily have saved myself the trouble and pain in which I had been involved by taking a ticket and travelling eastward on my own account, leaving the Company to take care of themselves in the Californian capital.