In pursuance of the policy indicated in the report of 1840, Bartholomew Fair, now represented by a few stalls, was proclaimed in 1850 by deputy; and this course was followed until 1855, when not a single stall-keeper applied for space, and the ceremony of proclaiming the fair was omitted altogether. The new fair in Britannia Fields was held only two or three years, that concession to the showmen and to the fair-going portion of the public having been designed only for the purpose of facilitating the extinction of the old fair in Smithfield. Greenwich Fair was the scene in 1850 of an outrageous and dastardly attack on Johnson and Lee's theatre by a body of soldiers from Woolwich. It seems to have originated in a practical joke played by a soldier upon a young man in the crowd before the theatre, and which, being resented, was followed by an assault. On the latter retreating up the steps of the parade waggon, followed by his assailant, Nelson Lee interposed for his protection, and was himself assaulted by the soldier, who was thereupon ejected. A number of soldiers, witnessing the discomfiture of their comrade, immediately rushed up the steps, and began an indiscriminate attack upon everybody on the parade. The company, finding themselves over-matched, took refuge in the interior, or jumped off the parade, and fled as if for their lives. An actor named Chappell stood by Nelson Lee after the rest had fled, but he joined in the stampede ultimately, and the proprietor of the theatre was left alone, defending himself and property against a swarm of foes. The story told long afterwards of the harlequin of the company was, that he ran without pause to the railway station, and jumped into a train just starting for London. He then ran from London Bridge to Shoreditch, and rushing, exhausted and excited, into a public-house adjoining the City of London theatre, gasped, "Blood--soldiers--Mr. Lee--frightful affair--three pen'orth o' brandy!"