Mr. Clark, the new proprietor, {64b} had made money in the marine-store business, and would have been better qualified to command the Channel Fleet than to manage the Eagle. He had, it is true, been for a short time the lessee of the Adelphi, but he had no eye for theatrical business, and his new venture, chiefly in the regions of melodrama, was once more disastrous to his pocket. Perhaps the failure was not entirely his own fault. Tastes were changing, and the Eagle garden, with its public dancing—now that Cremorne had passed away—seemed something like a scandal or an anachronism. In the time of the Conquests there had been complaints of the company that frequented the Eagle. Such charges are too often exaggerated, because they are often made by well-meaning people who really know nothing _at first hand_ of popular amusements, and who go to the garden or the music-hall to collect evidence, as it were, for the prosecution. At the same time, there is generally something in complaints of the kind, nor are managers quite the immaculate beings that their counsel represent them to be when licences come on for renewal in October. It is right to say that George Conquest seems to have done his best to keep out notoriously bad characters, and that he warned mere boys and girls off his monster platform and his concert-hall. Mr. Clark’s difficulties and the belief, well founded or not, that the Eagle was an undesirable public influence formed the opportunity of ‘General’ Booth and the Salvation Army. The Army wanted a barracks and a headquarters for their social and religious work. That they should have obtained these—and largely by public subscription—few will complain. But it is not quite clear that it was imperative to make an onslaught on the Eagle, being, as it was, a centre of amusement in the colourless life of the district. A new theatre might well have arisen under a new Conquest, even if the garden and the dancing had to go. In June, 1882, the Eagle was purchased by the Army. In August the stage appliances were sold off, and the Army entered the citadel in triumph. In September the public were admitted. A great tent for religious services took the place of the monster platform—the pernicious spot on which, as Mr. Booth’s friends declared, so many ‘had danced their way to destruction.’ Curiously enough, though one object of the movement was to annihilate the Eagle tavern, that stronghold of beer-drinking and spirit-drinking, Mr. Booth discovered that the law compelled him to keep up the drinking licence, and beer is sold in the Eagle public-house at this very moment. Unfortunately, also, for its funds, the Army got involved in litigation about alterations and repairs—a costly business which was carried up to the House of Lords.