The Old Showmen and the Old London Fairs Part 11

"The strongest woman in Europe, the celebrated French Female Hercules, Madame Gobert, who will lift with her teeth a table five feet long and three feet wide, with several persons seated upon it; also carry thirty-six weights, fifty-six pounds each, equal to 2016 lbs. and will disengage herself from them without any a.s.sistance; will carry a barrel containing 340 bottles; also an anvil 400 pounds weight, on which they will forge with four hammers at the same time she supports it on her stomach; she will also lift with her hair the same anvil, swing it from the ground, and suspend it in that position to the astonishment of every beholder; will take up a chair by the hind stave with her teeth, and throw it over her head ten feet from her body. Her travelling caravan (weighing two tons) on its road from Harwich to Leominster, owing to the neglect of the driver and badness of the road, sunk in the mud, nearly to the box of the wheels; the two horses being unable to extricate it, she descended, and, with apparent ease, disengaged the caravan from its situation, without any a.s.sistance whatever."

Caulfield says that he visited the show "for the purpose of accurately observing her manner of performance, which was by lying extended at length on her back on three chairs; pillows were then placed over her legs, thighs, and stomach, over those two thick blankets, and then a moderately thick deal board; the thirty-six weights were then placed on the board, beginning at the bottom of the legs, and extending upwards above the knees and thighs, but none approaching towards the stomach. She held the board on each side with her hands, and when the last weight was put on, she pushed the board upwards on one side, and tumbled the weights to the ground. On the whole, there appeared more of trick than of personal strength in this feat. Her next performance was raising the anvil (which might weigh nearly 200 lbs.) from the ground with her hair, which is thick, black, and as strong as that in the tail of a horse; this is platted on each side, and fixed to two cords, which are attached to the anvil; then rising from a bending to an erect posture, she raises and swings the anvil several times backwards and forwards through her legs.

Her next feat was raising a table with her teeth, a slight, rickety thing, made of deal, with a bar across the legs, which, upon her grasping it, is sustained against her thighs, and enables her more easily to swing it round several times, maintaining her hold only by her teeth. The chair she makes nothing of, but canters it over her head like a plaything. That she is a wonderfully strong woman is evident, but that she can perform what is promised in her bills is a notorious untruth. She has an infant which now sucks at her breast, about eleven months old, that lifts, with very little exertion, a quarter of a hundred weight."

Greenwich and Stepney Fairs became popular places of resort with the working cla.s.ses of the metropolis during the second decade of the present century. Old showmen a.s.sert that the former was then declining, a state of things which they ascribe to the growing popularity of the latter; and it is certain that the number of persons who resort to a fair is no criterion of the number, size, and quality of the shows by which it is attended, or of the gains of the showmen. Croydon Fair was never visited by so many thousands of persons as in the years of its decadence, which commenced with the opening of the railway; but the average expenditure of each person, so far from increasing in the same proportion, must have considerably diminished.

The Easter Fair at Greenwich was the opening event of the season, and during its best days Richardson's theatre always occupied the best position. John Cartlitch, the original representative of Mazeppa, and James Barnes, afterwards famous as the pantaloon of the Covent Garden pantomimes, were members of Richardson's company at this time; and it was joined at Greenwich by Nelson Lee, well known to the present generation as an enterprising theatrical manager and a prolific producer of pantomimes, but at that time fresh from school, with no other experience of theatrical business than he had gained during a brief engagement as a supernumerary at the old Royalty to serve as the foundation of the fame to which he aspired.

James and Nelson Lee were the sons of Colonel Lee, who commanded a line regiment of infantry during the period of the Peninsular war. At their father's death, the elder boy was articled to a wine merchant in the City of London, but evinced so much dislike to trade, and such strong theatrical proclivities, that the articles were cancelled, and he was placed under the tuition of Bradley, the famous swordsman of the Coburg.

He declined a second time, however, to fulfil his engagement, and, leaving Bradley at the expiration of the first year, joined Bannister's circus company, in what capacity my researches have failed to show.

The Whitsuntide Fair at Greenwich was followed at this time by a small fair at Deptford, on the occasion of the annual official visit of the Master of the Trinity House, which was always made on the morrow of the festival of the Trinity. Ealing, Fairlop, Mitcham, and Camberwell followed; then came Bartholomew; the round of the fairs within ten miles of the metropolis being completed by Enfield and Croydon.

Richardson generally proceeded from Ealing to Portsmouth, where the three weeks' town fair was immediately followed by another of a week's duration on Portsdown Hill. One of the many stories which are current among showmen and actors of his eccentricities of character has its scene at a public-house on the Portsmouth road, at which he had, in the preceding year, been refused water and provender for his horses, the innkeeper growling that he had been "done" once by a showman, and did not want to have anything more to do with show folks. Richardson bore the insult in his mind, and on approaching the house again sent his company forward, desiring each to order a gla.s.s of brandy-and-water, but not to touch it until he joined them. Twenty gla.s.ses of brandy-and-water, all wanted at once, was an unprecedented demand upon that roadside hostelry; and the landlord, as he summoned all his staff to a.s.sist him, wondered what could be the cause of such an influx of visitors. While the beverage was being concocted the waggons came up, with Richardson walking at the head.

"Here we are, governor!" exclaimed one of the actors, who had, in the meantime, strolled out upon a little green before the inn.

"Hullo!" said Richardson, affecting surprise. "I thought you had gone on to the Black Bull. What are you all doing here?"

"Waiting for you to pay for the brandy-and-water, governor," replied the comedian.

"Not if I know it!" returned Richardson, with a scowl at the expectant innkeeper. "That's the crusty fellow that wouldn't give the poor beasts a pail of water and a mouthful of hay last year, and not a s.h.i.+lling of my money shall ever go into his pocket. So come on, my lads, and I'll stand gla.s.ses all round at the Black Bull."

And with these words he strode on, followed by his company, leaving the disappointed innkeeper aghast behind his twenty gla.s.ses of brandy-and-water.

At Portsmouth some dissension arose between Richardson and William Cooke, whose equestrians, as the consequence or the cause, paraded in front of the theatre, and prevented free access to it.

"We must move them chaps from before our steps, Lewis," said Richardson to his stage-manager; and having a basket-horse among his properties, he had some squibs and crackers affixed to it, and sent one of the company to caper in it in the rear of Cooke's horses.

Very few of the horses used for circus parades being trained for the business of the ring, the fireworks no sooner began to fizz and bang than the equine obstructives became so restive that Cooke found it expedient to recall them to his own parade waggon.

Richardson always returned to the metropolis for Bartholomew Fair, where the shows were, in 1820, arranged for the first time in the manner described by Hone five years later. They had previously formed a block on the site of the sheep-pens; but this year swings and roundabouts were excluded, so as to preserve the area open, and the shows were built round the sides of the quadrangle. As the fair existed at this time, there were small uncovered stalls from the Skinner Street corner of Giltspur Street, along the whole length of the churchyard; and on the opposite side of Giltspur Street there were like stalls from the Newgate Street corner, along the front of the Compter prison. At these stalls were sold fruit, oysters, toys, gingerbread, baskets, and other articles of trifling value.

They were held by the small fry of the stall-keeping fraternity, who lacked means to pay for s.p.a.ce and furnish out a tempting display. The fronts of these standings were towards the pa.s.sengers in the carriage-way.

Then, with occasional distances of three or four feet for footways from the road to the pavement, began lines of covered stalls, with their open fronts opposite the fronts of the houses and close to the curbstone, and their enclosed backs to the road. On the St. Sepulchre's side they extended to c.o.c.k Lane, and thence to the Smithfield corner of Giltspur Street, then, turning the corner into Smithfield, they extended to Hosier Lane, and from thence all along the west side of Smithfield to Cow Lane, where, on that side, they terminated in a line with the opposite corner leading to St. John Street, where the line was resumed, and continued to Smithfield Bars, and there, on the west side, ended. Crossing over to the east side, and returning south, these covered stalls commenced opposite to their termination on the west, and ran towards Smithfield, turning into which they extended westerly towards the pig-market, and thence to Long Lane, from which point they ran along the east side of Smithfield to the great gate of Cloth Fair. From Duke Street they continued along the south side to the great front gate of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and from thence to the carriage entrance of the hospital, from whence they extended along Giltspur Street to the Compter, where they joined the uncovered stalls.

These covered stalls, thus surrounding Smithfield, belonged to dealers in gingerbread, toys, hardwares, pocketbooks, trinkets, and articles of all prices, from a halfpenny to ten s.h.i.+llings. The largest stalls were those of the toy-sellers, some of which had a frontage of twenty-five feet, and many of eighteen feet. The frontage of the majority of the stalls was eight to twelve feet; they were six or seven feet high in front, and five at the back, and all formed of canvas stretched upon a light frame-work of wood; the canvas roofs sloped to the backs, which were enclosed by canvas to the ground. The fronts were open to the thronging pa.s.sengers, for whom a clear way was preserved on the pavements between the stalls and the houses, all of which, necessarily, had their shutters up and their doors closed.

The shows had their fronts towards the area of Smithfield, and their backs to the backs of the stalls, without any pa.s.sage between them in any part.

The area of Smithfield was thus entirely open, and persons standing in the carriage-way could see all the shows at one view. They surrounded Smithfield entirely, except on the north side. Against the pens in the centre there were no shows, the s.p.a.ce between being kept free for spectators and persons making their way to the exhibitions. Yet, although no vehicle of any kind was permitted to pa.s.s, this immense carriage-way was always so thronged as to be almost impa.s.sable. Officers were stationed at the Giltspur Street, Hosier Lane, and Duke Street entrances to prevent carriages and hors.e.m.e.n from entering, the only ways by which these were allowed ingress to Smithfield being through Cow Lane, Chick Lane, Smithfield Bars, and Long Lane; and they were to go on and pa.s.s, without stopping, through one or other of these entrances, and without turning into the body of the fair. The city officers, to whom was committed the execution of these regulations, enforced them with rigour, never swerving from their instructions, but giving no just ground of offence to those whom the regulations displeased.

The shows were very numerous this year. There were four menageries, the proprietors of which are not named in the newspapers of the day, which inform us further that there was "the usual variety of conjurors, wire-dancers, giants, dwarfs, fat children, learned pigs, albinoes, &c."

Ballard, Wombwell, and Atkins were probably among the menagerists, though I have found no bill or other memorial of either of the two great menageries of the second quarter of the eighteenth century of an earlier date than 1825.

Gyngell, like Richardson, never missed Bartholomew Fair in those days; and he was now supported by a clever grown-up family, consisting of Joseph, who was a good juggler and balancer; Horatio, who, besides being a dancer, was a self-taught artist of considerable ability; George, who was a pyrotechnist; and Louisa, a very beautiful young woman and graceful tight-rope dancer, who afterwards fell, and broke one of her arms, in ascending from the stage of Covent Garden Theatre to the gallery. Nelson Lee joined Gyngell's company on the termination of his engagement with Richardson; and, having learned the juggling business from a Frenchman in the _troupe_, shortly afterwards exhibited his skill at the Adelphi, and other London theatres.

CHAPTER X.

Saker and the Lees--Richardson's Theatre--Wombwell, the Menagerist--The Lion Fights at Warwick--Maughan, the Showman--Miss Hipson, the Fat Girl--Lydia Walpole, the Dwarf--The Persian Giant and the Fair Circa.s.sian--Ball's Theatre--Atkins's Menagerie--A Mare with Seven Feet--Hone's Visit to Richardson's Theatre--Samwell's Theatre--Clarke's Circus--Brown's Theatre of Arts--Ballard's Menagerie--Toby, the Learned Pig--William Whitehead, the Fat Boy--Elizabeth Stock, the Giantess--Chappell and Pike's Theatre--The Spotted Boy--Wombwell's "Bona.s.sus"--Gouffe, the Man-Monkey--De Berar's Phantasmagoria--Scowton's Theatre--Death of Richardson.

Nelson Lee had just completed a round of engagements at the London theatres when, in 1822, his brother, having terminated his engagement with Bannister's circus, came to the metropolis, and fitted up an unoccupied factory in the Old Kent Road as a theatre. Nelson joined him in the enterprise, which for a time was tolerably successful; but they had omitted the requisite preliminary of obtaining a licence, and one night a strong force of constables invaded the theatre, and arrested every one present, audience as well as actors, with one exception. Saker, who afterwards won some distinction as a comedian, ascended into a loft on the first alarm, and drew up the ladder by which he had escaped. When all was quiet, he descended, and left the building through a window. The watch-houses of Southwark, Newington, Camberwell, and Greenwich were filled with the offenders, most of whom, however, were discharged on the following day, while the Lees, who pleaded ignorance of the law, escaped with a small fine.

The same year witnessed the final performances of "Lady Holland's Mob."

About five thousand of the rabble of the City a.s.sembled in the neighbourhood of Skinner Street, about midnight of the eve of St.

Bartholomew, and roared and rioted till between three and four o'clock next morning, without interference from the watch or the constables. From this time, however, this annual Saturnalia was not observed, or was observed so mildly that the newspapers contain no record of the circ.u.mstance.

In 1823, Richardson presented his patrons with a drama called _The Virgin Bride_, and an extravaganza ent.i.tled _Tom, Logic, and Jerry_, founded upon Moncrieff's drama, and concluding with a panorama of the metropolis. On the third day, a romantic drama called _The Wanderer_ was subst.i.tuted.

Wombwell's menagerie comes prominently into notice about this time. Its proprietor is said to have begun life as a cobbler in Monmouth Street, Seven Dials, then a famous mart of the second-hand clothes trade, and now called Dudley Street. The steps by which he subsequently advanced to the position of an importer of wild animals and proprietor of one of the largest and finest collections that ever travelled are unknown; but that he preceded Jamrach and Rice in the former vocation is proved by the existence of a small yellow card, bearing the device of a tiger, and the inscription--

WOMBWELL, WILD BEAST MERCHANT, _Commercial Road_, LONDON.

_All sorts of Foreign Animals, Birds, &c., bought, sold, or exchanged, at the Repository, or the Travelling Menagerie._

Wombwell never missed Bartholomew Fair, as long as it continued to be held, but a story is told of him which shows that he was once very near doing so. His menagerie was at Newcastle-on-Tyne within a fortnight of the time when it should be in Smithfield, and it did not seem possible to reach London in time; but, being in the metropolis on some business connected with his Commercial Road establishment, he found that Atkins was advertising that his menagerie would be "the only wild beast show in the fair." The rivalry which appears to have existed at that time between the two great menagerists prompted Wombwell to post down to Newcastle, and immediately commence a forced march to London. By making extraordinary exertions, he succeeded in reaching the metropolis on the morning of the first day of the fair. But his elephant had exerted itself so much on the journey that it died within a few hours after its arrival on the ground.

Atkins heard by some means of his rival's loss, and immediately placarded the neighbourhood with the announcement that his menagerie contained "the only living elephant in the fair." Wombwell resolved that his rival should not make capital of his loss in this manner, and had a long strip of canvas painted with the words--"The only dead elephant in the fair." This bold bid for public patronage proved a complete success. A dead elephant was a greater rarity than a live one, and his show was crowded every day of the fair, while Atkins's was comparatively deserted. The keen rivalry which this story ill.u.s.trates did not endure for ever, for, during the period of my earliest recollections, from forty to fifty years ago, the two great menageries never visited Croydon Fair together, their proprietors agreeing to take that popular resort in their tours in alternate years.

I never failed, in my boyhood, to visit Wombwell's, or Atkins's show, whichever visited Croydon Fair, and could never sufficiently admire the gorgeously-uniformed bandsmen, whose brazen instruments brayed and blared from noon till night on the exterior platform, and the immense pictures, suspended from lofty poles, of elephants and giraffes, lions and tigers, zebras, boa constrictors, and whatever else was most wonderful in the brute creation, or most susceptible of brilliant colouring. The difference in the scale to which the zoological rarities within were depicted on the canvas, as compared with the figures of men that were represented, was a very characteristic feature of these pictorial displays. The boa constrictor was given the girth of an ox, and the white bear should have been as large as an elephant, judged by the size of the sailors who were attacking him among his native ice-bergs.

I have a perfect recollection of Wombwell's two famous lions, Nero and Wallace, and their keeper, "Manchester Jack," as he was called, who used to enter Nero's cage, and sit upon the animal, open his mouth, etc. It is said that, when Van Amburgh arrived in England with his trained lions, tigers, and leopards, arrangements were made for a trial of skill and daring between him and Manchester Jack, which was to have taken place at Southampton, but fell through, owing to the American showing the white feather. The story seems improbable, for Van Amburgh's daring in his performances has never been excelled.

Lion-tamers, like gymnasts, are generally killed half-a-dozen times by rumour, though they die in their beds in about the same proportion as other men; and I remember hearing an absurd story which conferred upon Manchester Jack the unenviable distinction of having his head bitten off by a lion. He was said to have been exhibiting the fool-hardy trick, with which Van Amburgh's name was so much a.s.sociated, of putting his head in the lion's mouth, and to have been awakened to a sense of his temerity and its consequences by hearing the animal growl, and feeling its jaw close upon his neck.

"Does he whisk his tail, Bill?" he was reported to have said to another keeper while in this horrible situation.

"Yes," replied Bill.

"Then I am a dead man!" groaned Manchester Jack.

A moment afterwards, the lion snapped its formidable jaws, and bit off the keeper's head. Such was the story; but it is contradicted by the fact that Manchester Jack left the menagerie with a whole skin, and for many years afterwards kept an inn at Taunton, where he died in 1865.

Nero's tameness and docility made him a public favourite, but the "lion,"

_par excellence_, of Wombwell's show, after the lion-baitings at Warwick, was Wallace. At the time when the terrible death of the lion-tamer, Macarthy, had invested the subject with extraordinary interest, a narrative appeared in the columns of a metropolitan morning journal, purporting to relate the experiences of "an ex-lion king," in which the story of these combats was revived, but in a manner not easily reconciled with the statement of the man who communicated his reminiscences to the "special commissioner" of the journal in question, that he knew the animals and their keeper.

"Did you ever," the ex-lion king was reported to have said, "hear of old Wallace's fight with the dogs? George Wombwell was at very low water, and not knowing how to get his head up again, he thought of a fight between an old lion he had--sometimes called Wallace, sometimes Nero--and a dozen of mastiff dogs. Wallace was as tame as a sheep; I knew him well--I wish all lions were like him. The prices of admission ranged from a guinea up to five guineas, and every seat was taken, and had the menagerie been three times as large it would have been full. It was a queer go, and no mistake!

Sometimes the old lion would scratch a lump out of a dog, and sometimes the dogs would make as if they were going to worry the old lion; but neither side showed any serious fight, and at length the patience of the audience got exhausted, and they went away in disgust. George's excuse was, 'We can't make 'em fight, can we, if they won't?' There was no getting over this, and George cleared over two thousand pounds by the night's work."

According to the newspaper reports of the time, two of these lion-baitings took place; and some vague report or dim recollection of the events as they actually occurred seems to have been in the mind of the "ex-lion king" when he gave the preceding account of them. The combats were said to have originated in a bet between two sporting gentlemen, and the dogs were not a dozen mastiffs, but six bull-dogs, and attacked the lion in "heats"

of three. The first fight, the incidents of which were similar in character to those described in the foregoing story, was between Nero and the dogs, and took place in July, 1825; at which time the menagerie was located in the Old Factory Yard, in the outskirts of Warwick, on the road to Northampton. This not being considered satisfactory and conclusive, a second encounter was arranged, in which Wallace, a younger animal, was subst.i.tuted for the old lion, with very different results. Every dog that faced the lion was killed or disabled, the last being carried about in Wallace's mouth as a rat is by a terrier or a cat.

Shows had been excluded from Greenwich Fair this year, and Bartholomew's was looked forward to by the showmen as the more likely on that account to yield an abundant harvest. Hone says that Greenwich Fair was this year suppressed by the magistrates, and the absence of shows may be regarded as evidence of some bungling and wrong-headed interference; but a score of booths for drinking and dancing were there, only two of which, Algar's and the Albion, made any charge for admission to the "a.s.sembly room," the charge for tickets at these being a s.h.i.+lling and sixpence respectively.

Algar's was three hundred and twenty-three feet long by sixty wide, seventy feet of the length const.i.tuting the refreshment department, and the rest of the s.p.a.ce being devoted to dancing, to the music of two harps, three violins, ba.s.s viol, two clarionets, and flute.