THE LIAR 281 



plaintiff. It cost the paper fully 1000, and at that stage 

 of existence such a loss was nearly fatal, as can be well 

 understood. The worst of it was that but for the lawyers, 

 I am sure the thing could have been settled without any 

 payment at all. 



We fought through these evil days somehow or other, 

 and I remember struggling desperately for novelties so 

 as to compel the public to take notice. One was found 

 in an old play-bill, of gth January 1872, of theatricals at 

 Southbourne, Mr Joseph Chamberlain's house at that time. 

 The play was : 



THE LIAR 



By SAMUEL FOOTE 

 and the following was the cast : 



SIR JAMES ELLIOT . . . MY Alfred Osier 



OLD WILDING .... Mr C. Beale 



YOUNG WILDING .... Mr J. Chamberlain 



PAPILLON Mr W. P. Beale 



Miss GRANTHAM .... Mrs W. P. Beale 



Miss GODFREY .... Miss M. E. Beale 



Some of the actors as mentioned above are, I hope, still 

 alive. It can perhaps hardly be realised by the modern 

 generation that Mr Chamberlain in the eighties was 

 regarded much as Mr Lloyd George was, in his unregener- 

 ate days, during the Boer War ; and the discovery of this 

 play-bill, showing how he had been starred as the im- 

 personator of THE LIAR, was almost a triumph. 



In further efforts after sensation in lieu of immediate 

 capital I even gave a facsimile full-page autograph letter 

 from Marwood giving instructions how to hang a man, and 

 it bore his official stamp " Wm. Marwood, Executioner, 

 Church Lane, Horncastle, Lincolnshire, England." 



That this attracted attention goes without the saying, 

 but it was certainly playing the game rather low down 

 to condescend to such an effort. Worse than all, while I 

 had been for a brief holiday after the first half-year of 



