CRYSTAL PALACE’S FATE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2692, 23 December 1909, Page 2

CRYSTAL PALACE’S FATE.

DECLINE AND FALL A FAMOUS RESORT.

There are thousands of people who will regret the misfortunes of the Crystal Palace. On the application of the first debenture-holders, an interim receiver has been appointed. The Crystal Palace is a world’s institution, and anything affecting it adversely touches a public beyond these isles. The palace has grown to be a public institution, ranking with the Albert Hall, the Monjiment, and the Tower Bridge, and only a little distance behind. Westminster Abbey in point of national interest. Prometheus, the Graces, the wounded hunter, Diana, and others of the Olympian age, gazed coldly upon shuttered stalls. In the cloistered court, sacred to the art of the Renaissance, sculptured kings and queens, their bauds piously' clasped, lay decorously upon their carved tombs. In a little kiosque at the .southern end the performing ants still pose as models of industry to resentful youth. All these things are comprehended in the phrase, “Crystal Palace” —all the pleasant memories of broad grounds in bloom, of line upon line of twinkling colored lights, of balloons rising slowly from behind the trees that fringe the balloon ground, or water temples, and the most gorgeous and world-famou s display of fireworks that has ever been invented to gladden the heart. Children of all ages are associated in our minds with the institution which was callously referred to- as having “fallen on evil days.” Yet it would seem that we have already had evidence of the hard time s the palace lias undergone. Nothing but necessity would have induced the .managers to withdraw, as they did last year, the firework display, which was the greatest of the Sydenham features. The Crystal Palace suffers because, some veai's ago, an enterprising entertainment manager discovered that if you experience any difficulty in getting people to come to your theatres, the theatres should be taken to the people. And there sprang up, the very doors of the theatre-goer, .splendidly equipped places of amusement. Up to this time the amusement seeker had been in the habit of taking bis pleasures strenuously. Theatre-going meant long journeys by train and omnibus, and it mattered very little to him whether he went east or west, north or south. But nowadays the Londoner has grown lazy. The Crystal Palace means a journey, besides which, lie tells himself, • “He has seen it all before.” Consequently, the extra attraction that is to take him via the South-Eastern or the London and Brighton railways to the -big glass house must be very great indeed. There is little doubt that the present difficulty will be overcome, and the necessary money to carry on the Crystal Palace as a place of public recreation will be forthcoming.