THE CHINESE MUSEUM.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.
Chinese Collection, Hyde Park Corner, 28th June 1842.
SIR—At the conclusion of a very able notice which appeared in your paper of Saturday last upon the Chinese Collection at Hyde Park Corner, you kindly offered your advice respecting the terms established for the admission of the public. I have no doubt but the advice then given was sincere, and that it was intended for my benefit ; but as the mere circumstance of your proposing an alteration might induce some parties to suppose that a reduction might either shortly or at some distant period take place, I think it highly necessary that I should inform you that I have given the subject the fullest consideration, and that I intend to abide in every particular by the regulations which I have now made.
In deciding upon the price of admission, I did not make the amount of my receipts the only consideration, nor did I presume to affix my own estimate upon my own exhibition ; but having previously been honoured by the visits and the promised patronage of her most gracious Majesty, the Prince ALBERT, and
hundreds of the most distinguished nobility of England, I was desirous of obtaining an avowal of their opinions; and in naming two shillings and sir- pence as the terms, I assure you I have determined on the very lowest charge which the most experienced persons among them considered it prudent that I should adopt.
I beg to return my sincere thanks for your very friendly recommendation;
and have the honour to be, Sir, yours very obediently, NATHAN DUNN.
[We insert the above letter, as addressed to ourselves, though it has already appeared in a daily journal as an advertisement At the same time, we do not understand how a suggestion from a newspaper, known to act entirely on its own independent judgment, should be taken as implying any intention on the part of the proprietor of an exhibition to adopt it. We regret the deter- mination Mr. Donn has come to, both on his own account and that of the public, to the far greater number of whom the half-crown admission will ope- rate as an exclusion ; and we think he will find by experience that the "no- bility of England" are not qualified by an acquaintance with the feelings and means of the mass of the people to give a sound opinion as to the price of admission to an exhibition alike interesting to the many and the few. With the aristocracy exclusiveness is a great recommendation, and a high price of admission is the only way to give any thing like an exclusive character to a public exhibition. The "Chinese Collection is well worth paying half-a-crown to see ; but there are thousands who cannot afford to pay this sum' to whom a sight of it would give greater gratification and instruction than the fashionables who make it a morning lounge. Besides, custom has fixed one shilling as the current exhibition-fee; though Mr. DIINN, as a citizen of the United States newly arrived in Europe, may not be aware of this. We should not have thought it worth while to Bay a word about the price, in the case of an exhibi- tion of more limited intereat.-En.)
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