The state of theatrical affairs in San Francisco had been for a considerable time prior to midsummer, 1879, steadily declining, and conditions at the Baldwin had become equivocal and perplexing. E. J. Baldwin was actively at variance with Maguire, whose formal lease of the theatre had expired on the preceding July 1, and the house was being conducted, in “a hand to mouth” way, under some dubious arrangement of expediency between Maguire and Charles L. Gardner. Heavy debts had been contracted and credit had been exhausted. “That ’benefit,’” Belasco has declared to me, “was urgently needed! Maguire was, among other things, an inveterate gambler and would often stake every dollar the treasury contained. Then, if luck went against him, he’d come and tell us salaries could not be paid, because he had lost! The salaries were paid,—out of ’Lucky’ Baldwin’s pocket. But he had grown tired of backing a losing game and, besides, he and Maguire had had some special row,—I don’t now remember what it was about,—and Baldwin had withdrawn his support. Expenses were very high: Miss Coghlan’s engagement had ’run on’ and her $500 a week was a heavy drag: Herne and I had an interest, and we simply had to have some ready money to keep us going,—so I suggested a double-barrelled ’benefit’ as a way of getting it.”

A particular reason for solicitude when this Belasco-Herne “benefit” was projected was urgent desire to insure Rose Coghlan’s appearance—which had been advertised—as Gervaise, in a play called “L’Assommoir.” Émile Zola’s noxious novel of that name was published, in Paris, in 1878, and a stage synopsis of it, made by W. Bushnach and—— Gastineau, was produced, January 18, 1879, at the ThÉÂtre Ambigu-Comique. It is interesting to note that Augustin Daly, who chanced to be in the French capital soon afterward, witnessed a performance of it and, in a letter written to his brother, the late Joseph Francis Daly, under date of January 30, described it in these words:

“‘L’Assommoir’ is a disgusting piece,—one prolonged sigh, from first to last, over the miseries of the poor, with a dialogue culled from the lowest slang and tritest claptrap. It gave me no points that I could use, and the only novelty in it was in the lavoir scene, where two washwomen (the heroine and her rival) throw pails of warm water (actually) over each other and stand dripping before the audience.”