During the summer months I visited various parts of the Continent for the purpose of obtaining the best talent I could find for the coming contest. Various meetings were held by my Academy stockholders in New York when they at length began to realize the justice of my demands for assistance, as it could not be expected that 200 of the best seats, for which no payment whatever was to be made, should be occupied for listening to Mdme. Patti, who was receiving £1,000 a night. After various meetings, a resolution was passed by which they agreed to give me a nightly assessment of four dollars a seat for the proscenium boxes, three for the other boxes, and two for the seats elsewhere, which during my season it was estimated by them would produce some £6,000; and a cable was sent me to that effect in order to obviate the trouble we had all fallen into in the previous year. At the same time the Directors passed a resolution to keep the theatre closed in case I did not accept their promised support. About this time a young singer named Emma Nevada was attracting considerable attention in Europe, and after some difficulty I succeeded in adding her name to my already powerful list, which, however, did not include that of Madame Christine Nilsson, as I had contemplated; that lady having cried off at the last moment without any valid reason, after I had accepted all her conditions. In due course the New York prospectus was issued, and a very fine subscription was the result, the demand for boxes being particularly brisk. We sailed from Liverpool, and arrived in New York on the 1st November. I had a few hours only to give preliminary instruction regarding the commencement of my season when a telegram arrived to the effect that the _Oregon_, with Mdme. Patti on board, had been sighted off Fire Island. I at once ordered the military band to go down to the _Blackbird_; but as no further telegram reached me from Sandy Hook they went on shore for beer. It was late in the evening when the expected telegram arrived, and the vessel had to start immediately. The only musicians I had now on board wherewith to serenade Patti were a clarinet, a trombone, and a big drum. Stretched from mast to mast was a huge tarpaulin with the word "Welcome!" on both sides, in letters three feet long. In the lower bay of quarantine I met the _Oregon_, and as my steamer came alongside a small group appeared, and I at once recognized Patti. Handkerchiefs were waved, and three cheers given by my friends on board the _Blackbird_. We had a ladder with us which just reached from the top of our paddle-box to about two feet below the sides of the vessel. I was on the point of clambering up when the captain shrieked out-- "Patti cannot be taken out to-night without a permission from the health-officer." I at once tendered a permit I had obtained from the barge office, allowing Patti to go on shore. I passed it to the captain, who, on reading it, said--