Successors of Scowton and Richardson--Nelson Lee--Crowther, the Actor--Paul Herring--Newman and Allen's Theatre--Fair in Hyde Park--Hilton's Menagerie--Bartholomew Fair again threatened--Wombwell's Menagerie--Charles Freer--Fox Cooper and the Bosjesmans--Destruction of Johnson and Lee's Theatre--Reed's Theatre--Hales, the Norfolk Giant--Affray at Greenwich--Death of Wombwell--Lion Queens--Catastrophe in a Menagerie--World's Fair at Bayswater--Abbott's Theatre--Charlie Keith, the Clown--Robson, the Comedian--Manders's Menagerie--Macomo, the Lion-Tamer--Macarthy and the Lions--Fairgrieve's Menagerie--Lorenzo and the Tigress--Sale of a Menagerie--Extinction of the London Fairs--Decline of Fairs near the Metropolis--Conclusion. The change in the proprietorship of the travelling theatres conducted during so many years by Scowton and Richardson may be regarded as a stage in the history of the people's amusements. The decline which showmen had noted during the preceding years had not been perceptible to the public, who had crowded the London fairs more densely than ever, and found as many showmen catering for their entertainment as in earlier years. But while the crowds that gazed at Wombwell's show-cloths, and the parades of Richardson's theatre and Clarke's circus, became more dense every year, the showmen found their receipts diminish and their expenses increase. The people had more wants than formerly, and their means of supplying them had not, at the time of the decadence of the London fairs, experienced a corresponding increase. The vast and ever-growing population of the metropolis furnished larger crowds, but the middle-class element had diminished, and continued to diminish; and the showmen found reduced charges to be a necessity, without resulting in the augmented gains which follow a reduction of prices in trade. Scowton's theatre was sold by private contract to Julius Haydon, who, after expending a considerable sum upon it, making it rival Richardson's in size, found the results so little to his advantage that he disposed of the whole concern a year afterwards to the successors of Richardson. These were the showman's old friends, John Johnson, to whom he left a legacy of five hundred pounds, and Nelson Lee, who, after the unfortunate speculation with his brother in the Old Kent Road, had travelled for a time with Holloway's show, then gone to Scotland with Grey's _fantoccini_, and, after a turn at Edinburgh with Dodsworth and Stevens's automatons, had returned to London, and was at the time of Richardson's death managing Sadler's Wells theatre for Osbaldiston. When he saw Richardson's property advertised for sale, he conferred with Johnson on the subject of its purchase by them, which they effected by private contract, Lee resigning his post at Sadler's Wells to undertake the management.