Many stories are current among showmen and the theatrical profession of Richardson's goodness of heart and his occasional eccentricities of conduct. On one occasion, while his portable theatre was at St. Albans, a fire occurred in the town, and many small houses were destroyed, the poor tenants of which by that means lost all their furniture, and almost everything they possessed. A subscription was immediately opened for their relief, and a public meeting was held to promote the benevolent purpose. Richardson attended, and when the Mayor, who presided, had read a list of donations, varying in amount from five shillings to twice as many pounds, he advanced to the table, and presented a Bank of England note for a hundred pounds. "To whom is the fund indebted for this munificent donation?" inquired the astonished Mayor. "Put it down to Muster Richardson, the showman," replied the donor, who then walked quietly from the room. He often paid the ground-rent of the poorer proprietors of travelling shows, booths, and stalls, whose receipts, owing to bad weather, had not enabled them to pay the claims of the owner of the field, and who, but for Richardson's kindness, would have been obliged to remain on the ground, losing the chance of making money elsewhere, until they could raise the required sum. He never seemed to expect repayment in such cases, and never referred to them afterwards. Saunders, who seems to have passed through an unusually long life in a chronic condition of impecuniosity, once borrowed ten pounds of him, and honourably and punctually repaid the money at the appointed time. Richardson seemed surprised, but he took the money, and made no remark. No very long time elapsed before Saunders wanted another loan, when, to his surprise, Richardson met his application with a decided refusal. "I paid you honourably the money you lent me before," observed Saunders with an aggrieved air. "That's it, Muster Saunders," rejoined Richardson. "You did pay me that money, and I was never more surprised in my life; and I mean to take care you don't surprise me again, either in that way, _or any other way_." In recruiting his company, he preferred actors who had learned a trade, such being, in his opinion, steadier and more to be depended upon than those who, like Kean, had been strollers from childhood. His pay-table was the head of the big drum, and his way of discharging an actor or musician with whom he was dissatisfied was to ask him, when giving him his week's salary, to leave his name and address with the stage-manager, who was also wardrobe-keeper and scene-shifter. This post was held for many years by a man named Lewis, who was also the general servant of Richardson's "living carriage," and at his winter quarters, Woodland Cottage, Horsemonger Lane, long since pulled down, the site being occupied by a respectable row of houses, called Woodland Terrace.