The Old Showmen and the Old London Fairs Part 12

According to the account preserved in Hone's 'Everyday Book,' the number of shows a.s.sembled in Smithfield this year was twenty-two, of which, one was a theatre for dramatic performances, five theatres for the various entertainments usually given in circuses, four menageries, one an exhibition of gla.s.s-blowing, one a peep-show, one a mare with seven feet, and the remaining nine, exhibitions of giants, dwarfs, albinoes, fat children, etc. Of course, the theatre was Richardson's, and the following bill was posted on the exterior, and given to every one who asked for it on entering:--

[Asterism] _Change of Performance each Day._

RICHARDSON'S THEATRE.

This day will be performed, an entire new Melo-Drama, called the

"WANDERING OUTLAW; or, the Hour of Retribution.

"Gustavus, Elector of Saxony, _Mr. Wright_. Orsina, Baron of Holstein, _Mr. Cooper_. Ulric and Albert, Va.s.sals to Orsina, _Messrs. Grove_ and _Moore_. St. Clair, the Wandering Outlaw, _Mr. Smith_. Rinalda, the Accusing Spirit, _Mr. Darling_. Monks, Va.s.sals, Hunters, &c. Rosabella, Wife to the Outlaw, _Mrs. Smith_. Nuns and Ladies.

"The Piece concludes with the DEATH OF ORSINA, and the Appearance of the

ACCUSING SPIRIT!

"_The Entertainments to conclude with a New Comic Harlequinade, with New Scenery, Tricks, Dresses, and Decorations, called_

"HARLEQUIN FAUSTUS OR, THE DEVIL WILL HAVE HIS OWN.

"Luciferno, _Mr. Thomas_. Daemon Amozor, afterwards Pantaloon, _Mr.

Wilkinson_. Daemon Ziokos, afterwards Clown, _Mr. Hayward_. Violencello Player, _Mr. Hartem_. Baker, _Mr. Thompson_. Landlord, _Mr. Wilkins_.

Fisherman, _Mr. Rae_. Doctor Faustus, afterwards Harlequin, _Mr. Salter_.

Adelada, afterwards Columbine, _Miss Wilmot_. Attendant Daemons, Sprites, Fairies, Ballad Singers, Flower Girls, &c., &c.

_The Pantomime will finish with_ A SPLENDID PANORAMA, _Painted by the First Artists_.

Boxes, 2_s._ Pit, 1_s._ Gallery, 6 _d._"

The theatre had an elevation exceeding thirty-feet, and occupied a hundred feet in width. The back of the exterior platform, or parade-waggon, was formed of green baize, before which deeply fringed crimson curtains were festooned, except at two places where the money-takers sat in wide and roomy projections, fitted up like Gothic shrines, with columns and pinnacles. Fifteen hundred variegated lamps were disposed over various parts of this platform, some of them depending from the top in the shape of chandeliers and l.u.s.tres, and others in wreaths and festoons. A band of ten performers, in scarlet dresses, similar to those worn by the Queen's yeomen, played continually, pa.s.sing alternately from the parade-waggon and the orchestra, and from the interior to the open air again.

The auditorium was about a hundred feet long, and thirty feet wide, and was hung with green baize and crimson festoons. The seats were rows of planks, rising gradually from the ground at the end, and facing the stage, without any distinction of boxes, pit, or gallery. The stage was elevated, and there was a painted proscenium, with a green curtain, and the royal arms above, and an orchestra lined with crimson cloth. Between the orchestra and the bottom row of seats was a large s.p.a.ce, which, after the seats were filled, and greatly to the discomfiture of the lower seat-holders, was nearly occupied by spectators. There were at least a thousand persons present on the occasion of Hone's visit.

"The curtain drew up," he says, "and presented the Wandering Outlaw, with a forest scene and a cottage; the next scene was a castle; the third was another scene in the forest. The second act commenced with a scene of an old church and a market-place. The second scene was a prison, and a ghost appeared to the tune of the evening hymn. The third scene was the castle that formed the second scene in the first act, and the performance was here enlivened by a murder. The fourth scene was rocks, with a cascade, and there was a procession to an unexecuted execution; for a ghost appeared, and saved the Wandering Outlaw from a fierce-looking headsman, and the piece ended. Then a plump little woman sang, 'He loves, and he rides away,' and the curtain drew up to Harlequin Faustus, wherein, after Columbine and a Clown, the most flaming character was the devil, with a red face and hands, in a red Spanish mantle and vest, red 'continuations,'

stockings and shoes ditto to follow, a red Spanish hat and plume above, and a red 'bra.s.s bugle horn.' As soon as the fate of Faustus was concluded, the sound of a gong announced the happy event, and these performances were, in a quarter of an hour, repeated to another equally intelligent and brilliant audience."

John Clarke, an elderly, gentlemanly-looking showman, whom I saw a few years afterwards "mountebanking" on a piece of waste land at Norwood, and whose memory, in spite of his infirmity of temper, is cherished by the existing generation of equestrians and acrobats, was here with his circus, a large show, with its back against the side of Samwell's, and its front in a line with Hosier Lane, and therefore looking towards Smithfield Bars.

The admission to this show was sixpence. The s.p.a.cious platform outside was lighted with gas, a distinction from the other shows in the fair which extended to the interior, where a single hoop, about two feet six inches in diameter, with little jets of gas about an inch and a half apart, was suspended over the arena.

"The entertainment," says Hone, "commenced by a man dancing on the tight rope. The rope was removed and a light bay horse was mounted by a female in trousers, with a pink gown fully frilled, flounced, and ribboned, with the shoulders in large puffs. While the horse circled the ring at full speed, she danced upon him, and skipped with a hoop like a skipping-rope; she performed other dexterous feats, and concluded by dancing on the saddle with a flag in each hand, while the horse flew round the ring with great velocity. These and the subsequent performances were enlivened by tunes from a clarionet and horn, and jokes from a clown, who, when she had concluded, said to an attendant, 'Now, John, take the horse off, and whatever you do, rub him down well with a cabbage.' Then a man rode and danced on another horse, a very fine animal, and leaped from him three times over garters, placed at a considerable height and width apart, alighting on the horse's back while he was going round. This rider was remarkably dexterous.

"In conclusion, the clown got up, and rode with many antic tricks, till, on the sudden, an apparently drunken fellow rushed from the audience into the ring, and began to pull the clown from the horse. The manager interfered, and the people cried, 'Turn him out;' but the man persisted, and the clown getting off, offered to help him up, and threw him over the horse's back to the ground. At length the intruder was seated, with his face to the tail, though he gradually a.s.sumed a proper position, and, riding as a man thoroughly intoxicated would ride, fell off; he then threw off his hat and great coat, and his waistcoat, and then an under waistcoat, and a third, and a fourth, and more than a dozen waistcoats.

Upon taking off the last, his trousers fell down, and he appeared in his s.h.i.+rt; whereupon he crouched, and drawing his s.h.i.+rt off in a twinkling, appeared in a handsome fancy dress, leaped into the saddle, rode standing with great grace, received great applause, made his bows, and so the performance concluded."

The remainder of the shows of this cla.s.s charged a penny only for admission. Of Samwell's, Hone says,--"I paid my penny to the money-taker, a slender 'fine lady,' with three feathers in a 'jewelled turban,' and a dress of blue and white muslin, and silver; and within-side I saw the 'fat, contented, easy' proprietor, who was arrayed in corresponding magnificence. If he loved leanness, it was in 'his better half,' for himself had none of it. Obesity had disqualified him for activity, and therefore in his immensely tight and large satin jacket, he was, as much as possible, the active commander of his active performers. He superintended the dancing of a young female on the tight rope. Then he announced 'A little boy will dance a horn-pipe on the rope,' and he ordered his 'band' inside to play; this was obeyed without difficulty, for it merely consisted of one man, who blew a hornpipe tune on a Pan's-pipe; while it went on, the little boy danced on the tight rope; so far it was a hornpipe dance, and no farther. 'The little boy will stand on his head on the rope,' said the manager; and the little boy stood on his head accordingly. Then another female danced on the slack wire; and after her came a horse, not a dancing horse, but a 'learned' horse, quite as learned as the horse at Ball's theatre."

At the show last mentioned was a man who balanced chairs on his chin, and holding a knife in his mouth, balanced a sword on the edge of the knife; he then put a pewter plate on the hilt of the sword horizontally, and so balanced the sword with the plate on the edge of the knife as before, the plate having previously had imparted to it a rotary motion, which it communicated to the sword, and preserved during the balance. He also balanced the sword and plate in like manner, with a crown-piece placed edge-wise between the point of the sword and the knife; and afterwards with two crown-pieces, and then with a key. These feats were accompanied by the jokes and grimaces of a clown, and succeeded by an acrobatic performance by boys, and a hornpipe by the lady of the company. Then a learned horse was introduced, and, as desired by his master, indicated a lady who wished to be married, a gentleman who preferred a quart of ale to a sermon, a lady who liked lying in bed when she should be up, and other persons of various proclivities amusing to the rest of the spectators.

Chappell and Pike's was a very large show, fitted up after the manner of Richardson's, with a parade, on which a clown and several acrobats in tights and trunks, and young ladies in ballet costume, alternately promenaded and danced, until the interior filled, and the performances commenced. These consisted of tumbling, slack-rope dancing, etc., as at Ball's, but better executed. The names of these showmen do not appear again in the records of the London fairs, from which it may be inferred that the show was a new venture, and failed. There was a performer named Chappell in the company of Richardson's theatre, while under the management of Nelson Lee; but whether related to the showman of 1825 I am unable to say.

The performances of "Brown's Grand Troop, from Paris," commenced with an exhibition of conjuring; among other tricks, the conjurer gave a boy beer to drink out of a funnel, making him blow through it to show that it was empty, and afterwards applying it to each of the boy's ears, from whence, through the funnel, the beer appeared to reflow, and poured on the ground.

Afterwards girls danced on the single and double slack wire, and a melancholy-looking clown, among other things, said they were "as clever as the barber and blacksmith who shaved magpies at twopence a dozen." The show concluded with a learned horse.

The menageries of Wombwell and Atkins were two of the largest shows in the fair. The back of the former ab.u.t.ted on the side of Chappell and Pike's theatre, on the north side of Smithfield, with the front looking towards Giltspur Street, at which avenue it was the first show. The front was entirely covered with painted show-cloths representing the animals, with the proprietor's name in immense letters above, and the inscription, "The Conquering Lion," very conspicuously displayed. There were other show-cloths along the whole length of the side, surmounted by this inscription, stretching out in one line of large capital letters, "Nero and Wallace, the same lions that fought at Warwick." One of the front show-cloths represented the second fight; a lion stood up, with a bleeding dog in his mouth, and his left fore paw resting upon another dog. A third dog was in the act of flying at him ferociously, and one, wounded and bleeding, was retreating. There were seven other show-cloths on this front, with the inscription "Nero and Wallace" between them. One of these show-cloths, whereon the monarch of the forest was painted, was inscribed, "Nero, the Great Lion, from Caffraria."

Wombwell's collection comprised at this time four lions and a lioness, two leopardesses, with cubs, a hyena, a b.i.t.c.h wolf and cubs, a polar bear, a pair of zebras, two onagers or wild a.s.ses, and a large a.s.sortment of monkeys and exotic birds. The bills announced "a remarkably fine tigress in the same den with a n.o.ble British lion;" but Hone notes that this conjunction, the announcement of which was probably suggested by the attractiveness of the lion-tiger cubs and their parents in Atkins's menagerie, was not to be seen in reality. The combats at Warwick produced a strong desire on the part of the public to see the lions who had figured in them, and the menagerie was crowded each day from morn till night.

"Manchester Jack" entered Nero's cage, and invited the visitors to follow, which many ventured to do, paying sixpence for the privilege, on his a.s.surance that they might do so with perfect safety.

Hone complains of the confusion and disorder which prevailed, and which are inseparable from a crowd, and may be not uncharitably suspected of being exaggerated in some degree by the evident prejudice which had been created in his mind by the lion-baitings at Warwick. It is certain, however, that gardens like those of the Zoological Society afford conditions for the health and comfort of the animals, and for their exhibition to the public, much more favourable than can be obtained in the best regulated travelling caravan, or in buildings such as the Tower menagerie and Exeter Change. It is impossible to do justice to animals which are cooped within the narrow limits of a travelling show, or in any place which does not admit of thorough ventilation. Apart from the impracticability of allowing sufficient s.p.a.ce and a due supply of air, a considerable amount of discomfort to the animals is inseparable from continuous jolting about the country in caravans, and from the braying of bra.s.s bands and the glare of gas at evening exhibitions.

It took even the Zoological Society some time to learn the conditions most favourable to the maintenance of the mammal tribes of tropical countries in a state of health, while subject to the restraint necessary for their safe keeping. Too much importance was at first attached to warming the cages in which the monkeys and carnivora of India and Africa were kept, and too little to ventilating them. I remember the time when the carnivora-house in the Society's gardens was a long, narrow building, with double folding-doors at each end, and a range of cages on each side. The cages were less than half the size of the light and lofty apartments now appropriated to the same species, and were artificially heated to such a degree that the atmosphere resembled that of the small gla.s.s-house in Kew Gardens in which the paper-reed and other examples of the aquatic vegetation of tropical countries are grown, and was rendered more stifling by the strong ammoniacal odour which constantly prevaded it.

It was found, however, that the mortality among the animals, notwithstanding all the care that was taken to keep them warm, was very great; and the idea gradually dawned upon the minds of the Council of the Society that ventilation might be more conducive to the health and longevity of the animals than any amount of heat. As lions and tigers, leopards and hyenas, baboons and monkeys, live, in a state of nature, in the open air of their native forests, the imperfect ventilation of the old carnivora-house and monkey-house seemed, when once the idea was broached, to be a very likely cause of the excessive mortality, which, as lions and tigers cost from a hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty pounds, was a constant source of heavy demands upon the Society's funds. It was determined, therefore, to try the experiment of constructing larger cages, and admitting the pure external air to them; and the results were so satisfactory that everybody wondered that the improved hygienic conditions had not been thought of before.

Atkins had a very fine collection of the feline genus, and was famous for the production of hybrids between the lion and the tigress. The cubs so produced united some of the external characteristics of both parents, their colour being tawny, marked while they were young with darker stripes, such as may be observed in black kittens, the progeny of a tabby cat. These markings disappeared, however, as the lion-tigers approached maturity, at which time the males had the mane entirely deficient, or very little developed. I remember seeing a male puma and a leopardess in the same cage in this menagerie, but I am unable to state whether the union was fruitful.

The display of show-cloths on the outside of this menagerie extended about forty feet in length, and the proprietor's name flamed along the front in coloured lamps. A bra.s.s band of eight performers, wearing scarlet tunics and leopard-skin caps, played on the outside; and Atkins shouted from time to time, "Don't be deceived! The great performing elephant is _here_; also the only lion and tigress in one den to be seen in the fair, or I'll forfeit a thousand guineas! Walk up!--walk up!"

The following singularly descriptive bill was posted on the outside and wherever else it could be displayed:--

"MORE WONDERS IN ATKINS'S ROYAL MENAGERIE.

Under the Patronage of HIS MAJESTY.

G. [Ill.u.s.tration] R.

"Wonderful Phenomenon in Nature! The singular and hitherto deemed impossible occurrence of a LION and TIGRESS cohabiting and producing young, has actually taken place in this menagerie, at Windsor. The tigress, on Wednesday, the 27th of October last, produced _three fine cubs_; one of them strongly resembles the tigress; the other two are of a lighter colour, but striped. Mr. Atkins had the honour (through the kind intervention of the Marquis of Conyngham) of exhibiting the _lion-tigers_ to His Majesty, on the first of November, 1824, at the Royal Lodge, Windsor Great Park; when His Majesty was pleased to observe, they were the greatest curiosity of the beast creation he had ever witnessed.

"The royal striped _Bengal Tigress_ has again whelped three fine cubs, (April 22,) two males and one female; the males are white, but striped; the female resembles the tigress, and, singular to observe, she fondles them with all the care of an attentive mother. The sire of the young cubs is the n.o.ble male lion. This remarkable instance of subdued temper and a.s.sociation of animals to permit the keeper to enter their den, and introduce their young to the spectators, is the greatest phenomenon in natural philosophy.

"That truly singular and wonderful animal, the AUROCHOS. Words can only convey but a very confused idea of this animal's shape, for there are few so remarkably formed. Its head is furnished with two large horns, growing from the forehead, in a form peculiar to no other animal; from the nostrils to the forehead is a stiff tuft of hair, and underneath the jaw to the neck is a similar brush of hair, and between the forelegs is hair growing about a foot and a half long. The mane is like that of a horse, white, tinged with black, with a beautiful long flowing white tail; the eye remarkably keen, and as large as the eye of the elephant: colour of the animal, dark chesnut; the appearance of the head, in some degree similar to the buffalo, and in some part formed like the goat, the hoof being divided; such is the general outline of this quadruped, which seems to partake of several species. This beautiful animal was brought over by Captain White, from the south of Africa, and landed in England, September 20th, 1823; and is the same animal so frequently mistaken by travellers for the unicorn: further to describe its peculiarities would occupy too much s.p.a.ce in a handbill. The only one in England.

"That colossal animal, the wonderful performing

ELEPHANT,

Upwards of ten feet high!! Five tons weight!! His consumption of hay, corn, straw, carrots, water, &c., exceeds 800 lbs. daily. The elephant, the human race excepted, is the most respectable of animals. In size, he surpa.s.ses all other terrestrial creatures, and by far exceeds any other travelling animal in England. He has ivory tusks, four feet long, one standing out on each side of his trunk. His trunk serves him instead of hands and arms, with which he can lift up and seize the smallest as well as the largest objects. He alone drags machines which six horses cannot move. To his prodigious strength, he adds courage, prudence, and an exact obedience. He remembers favours as well as injuries; in short, the sagacity and knowledge of this extraordinary animal are beyond anything human imagination can possibly suggest. He will lie down and get up at the word of command, notwithstanding the many fabulous tales of their having no joints in their legs. He will take a sixpence from the floor, and place it in a box he has in the caravan; bolt and unbolt a door; take his keeper's hat off, and replace it; and by the command of his keeper, will perform so many wonderful tricks that he will not only astonish and entertain the audience, but justly prove himself the half-reasoning beast.

He is the only elephant now travelling.

"A full grown LION and LIONESS with four cubs, produced December 12, 1824, at Cheltenham.

"_Male Bengal Tiger._ Next to the lion, the tiger is the most tremendous of the carnivorous cla.s.s; and whilst he possesses all the bad qualities of the former, seems to be a stranger to the good ones; to pride, to strength, to courage, the lion adds greatness, and sometimes, perhaps, clemency; while the tiger, without provocation, is fierce--without necessity, is cruel. Instead of instinct, he hath nothing but a uniform rage, a blind fury; so blind, indeed, so undistinguis.h.i.+ng, that he frequently devours his own progeny; and if the tigress offers to defend them he tears in pieces the dam herself.

"The _Onagra_, a native of the Levant, the eastern parts of Asia, and the northern parts of Africa. This race differs from the Zebra, by the size of the body, (which is larger,) slenderness of the legs, and l.u.s.tre of the hair. The only one now alive in England.

"_Two Zebras_, one full grown, the other in its infant state, in which it seems as if the works of art had been combined with those of nature in this wonderful production. In symmetry of shape, and beauty of colour, it is the most elegant of all quadrupeds ever presented; uniting the graceful figure of a horse, with the fleetness of a stag; beautifully striped with regular lines, black and white.

"A Nepaul _Bison_, only twenty-four inches high.

"_Panther_, or spotted tiger of Buenos Ayres, the only one travelling.

"A pair of _rattle-tail Porcupines_.