The :Manchester Festival appears to have been very successful in
point of numbers. The attendance, during the early part of the week, was quite as numerous as was expected; and the performances of the musicians seem to have given satisfaction. Unhappily, however, cer- tain performers of a different class attended the oratorios and concerts, and occupied themselves with picking the pockets of the company. Snuff-boxes, watches, purses, and bank-notes, were missed by many; and four members of "the swell mob" have been secured by the police, on suspicion of being the thieves. The good people of Manchester ran some risk of having no festival at all, or one shorn of its chief glory ; for Malibran has been suffering gam spasmodic attacks, so as to prevent her, on more than one °cell- oak from singing ; and the coach in which Lablache, Ivanhoff,
Alegi; Lavenu, and Mademoiselle Assandri, were travelling to Min-
ister, was overturned near Leicester. The Post gives the follow- -leg aemtnit of this accident, and of one which befel another party ataartsieians. " They (Lablache, &c.) had hired a vehicle with post-
Banes to go from Northampton to Leicester. On their arrival at ate latter place, they went to two hotels, but were unsuccessful in poeuring accommodation. At length they pursued their route to
a third inn; which they had just reached when one of the front- wheels of the coach broke on the side on which Lablache was sit- ting. The consequence was, that the machine turned completely nser. Mori, Lavenu, and servant, who were outside, escaped unhurt, hes the driver sustained some injury in his knee. A crowd was imme- diately, collected, and assistance was rendered to the inside passengers. reanhoff was first extricated, having suffered but little damage. M. ssandri followed, and her daughter was the next emancipated. Last, although certainly not least, Lablache was drawn out. When the narrounding gazers caught sight of his portly figure, and found that he nits but slightly injured, an involuntary burst of laughter broke forth ; and it is but justice to the great singer to mention, that he joined 'amid), in the merriment. The escape of the pretty Assandri was quite miraculous. She was under Lablache ; who, after the first shock, waked if she were injured. She made no reply ; and the ponderous singer, with great presence of mind, extended his arm, broke the window, and managed to raise himself above Assandri, who lied fallen with her mouth sot the cushion, and who then exclaimed that one minute more would have suffocated her. Much laughter has been caused by the statement af the bystanders, that Ivanhoff, after the coach was overturned, kept on exchtimitig, Tenez vous Ferule !' We wish we could record as harmless a result to some members of the band, in consequence of un upset, us we have been enabled to do for the vocalists. The affair which we are now about to describe is, however, of a very melancholy nature. The Peveril of the Peak coach was proceeding on Saturday morning, about half past two, on its way to Manchester from London, when, on its reaching about five miles of Bedford, the machine turned over. A feratleman of the name of O'Brien was killed on the spot. Mr. Ponder, the well-known ophicleide player, and Mr. Pigott, the vio- linist, sustained serious injuries in their right arms. The coachman, after remaining two hours under the vehicle, was extricated when assistance was obtained. He is not expected to survive. The other passengers escaped unhurt."
Great preparations were made in Manchester for the fancy ball, which was to take place last night at the close of the Musical Festival. The aranchester Courier gives the following description of the decora- tions and additions to the Theatre and the Assembly-rooms- " The theatre-entrance is from the centre of the lower boxes. The ceiling of the audience part will be hidden by drapery of alternate lengths, of crimson and white calico, forming a sort of Turkish tent, from the centre of which will besnspended the splendid chandelier which was used at the dinner given to the Duke of Wellington, and containing between three and four hundred jets of 5ghe. At the extreme end of the stage, (the walls of which will be covered with drapery arranged similarly to the audience part, ) a gallery will be erected fat the accommodation of the musicians, to the left of which has been erected a noble staircase, with flights eight or nine feet wide, on the right conducting to the refreshment-room, and on the left from the A,senibly-a owns and Portico; so that the company ascending by the flight conducting to the refreshment- ream will promenade through the whole suite of apartments, and return to the dleatre by way of the flight on the left. A refieshment-room has been built ewe Charlotte Street, the dimensions of which are two hundred feet long by tnrenty-eight feet six inches wide. Down each side of this immense room, tables extend the whole length. The walls are covered with alternate stripes of amber-coloured and white calico, surmounted with a false semicircular ceiling MC the same material ; and at intermediate distances along the whole length degant gas chandeliers are now in course of erection, under the superintendence of Mr. Bradford. In every department, elegance, utility, and convenience, are happiTy blended together. The refreshment-room is furnished along its whole extent with little leaden cisterns, for the reception of water, which is supplied by tubes and taps connected with the Waterworks Company's main, in Mosley Amt. Over Mosley Street has been erected a grand vestibule, forty-five feet aquave, connecting the Portico with the Assembly-rooms by two flights of stairs un,eaeb side. This room is decorated in a similar manner to the refreshment- mom, and forms the grand entrance to it from the Portico and Assembly-rooms."
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