“Then comes Blue Beard’s march, and enter troops, followed by Shackaback in a hurry. He’s Blue Beard’s servant. He bears on his shoulder an immense key, which he places in the middle of stage. He then comes to the front with a scroll, which he exhibits, on which is written:
At which they all become alarmed, and in an immense hurry of music enters Blue Beard majestically. He sings, to the tune of ‘The Low-back Car:’
“The lover from the side says:
“Then Blue Beard looks round fiercely, and his mask is made with eyes to work with strings:
(and he opens a tremendous pair of saucer eyes),
Then the music goes ‘Ha! ha!’ As he draws his sword into the army of four men, Shackaback gets it on the nose.
“Then Blue Beard goes direct to the old man and embraces him, and shows him a big purse of money. He then goes to the young lady, but she refuses him, and says she would sooner wed the young trooper. The old man gets in a rage, when enters Demon unseen by all; he waves over their heads; they then catch hold of hands and dance round the key again, to the tune of ‘The Roast Beef of Old England.’ Then begins a chorus which is thus, to the tune of ‘Stoney Batter:’
(Fairies from the side:)
(Others:)
“After dancing round key, Blue Beard orders two of the troops to seize the girl and carry her to the castle. Then they catch hands and begin singing, to the time of ‘Fine Young Bachelors:’
“And the scene closes on this. Then the lover just crosses, so as to give time to arrange the back scene. He vows vengeance on Blue Beard. Then scene opens, and discovers a chamber with Fatima on couch, and Demon behind with a large heart, on the scene over which is in illuminated letters:
The large key is placed at the foot of the couch on which she is laying. We don’t introduce the haunted chamber scenes, as it would have been too lengthened; but it was supposed that she had been there and examined it, and terror had overcome her and she had swooned. That’s when the audience sees her. We couldn’t do all the story at a penny gaff, it was too long. To return to the plot.
“Enter Fairy, who dances round the stage, and sees the heart. She goes and snatches the dagger; then a loud crash, and the key falls to pieces on the stage.
“I had five shillings given me as a present for that scene, for I had painted the scene all arches, and round every pillar was a serpent with fire coming from the mouth. I produced that pantomime, so that altogether it did not cost thirty shillings, because each man found his own dress, don’t you see.
“After the crash enters Blue Beard. He says the lady has broken the key, and he is about to kill her; when enter lover, and he has a terrific combat, in which they never hit a blow (like a phantom-fight); but the lover is about to be struck to the ground, when enters Fairy, who speaks these words:
“Then the scene falls, and discovers a fairy palace at back, with fairies, who sing:
“They all look dismayed at one another, and go to the sides ready for changing their dresses for the comic work.
“The Fairy Queen then says:
“And turning to the lady she adds:
“Turning to Blue Beard:
“Then Clown comes forward, and cries: ‘Halla! ha, ha, ha! here we are! Shobbus is out;’ (that’s the Jewish Sunday); and, oh dear! how they used to laugh at that!
“Then she turns to the old man:
“Then as she’s going off she says:
“Then the fairies sing:
“Then there is blue fire, and the scene closes, and the comic business begins.
“Clown dances first with Harlequin, and at the end of trip hollars out: ‘Ha, here we are!’ Then he sings out, each time Harlequin beats him, ‘A, E, I,’ (Pantaloon drops in and gets a blow, O!); and Clown says, ‘Tuppence! all right, you owe me nothing; I shan’t give you no change.’
“Then there’s a photography scene, and Clown comes on and says, ‘Here, I say, what shall we do for a living?’ Then Pantaloon says, ‘We’ll become dancing-masters.’ The Clown says, ‘They’ll take likenesses.’
“‘Ah, here’s somebody coming!’
“Enter a swell with white ducks, and a blacking-boy follows, says, ‘Clean your boots, sir?’ Clown asks him to clean his. As the boy is beginning, Harlequin bangs him, and he knocks the boy over. Next bang he gets he hits Pantaloon, and says he did it. Pantaloon says, ‘I never touched you;’ and Clown replies, ‘Then don’t do it again.’ Then I’d give ’em a rub up on the smoking mania. I’d say to boy, ‘Here, boy, take this farden to get yourself a pipe of tobacco, little boys is fond of smoking;’ and Pantaloon would add, ‘Yes, men’s left off.’ Boy goes off to buy the tobacco, and leaves his blacking-box, which Clown promises to take care of and clean the boots. He hollows out, ‘Clean your boots?’ and Pantaloon puts his foot down, and gets his toes rapped. Enter a lady, who asks where she can have her portrait taken,—Yes, marm; over there,—Clown steals parcel. When lady is gone, Clown discovers parcel to contain blank cards. This is what he takes the portraits on, and it was at a time when they was all the rage at a shilling. Clown then says, he’s taking portraits, and makes a camera out of the blacking-box. He cuts a hole in the box, and sticks the blacking-bottle for a lens. Then he places the box on Pantaloon’s back for a stand. Then, of course, Clown knocks him over, and he asks what that’s for. ‘Why, if you’re a stand, what do you fall for? I never see such a stand.’ Then ladies and gentlemen come in to have their portraits taken, and Clown smears the cards with blacking and gives it, and asks a shilling; when they grumble and won’t pay, he rubs the blacking in their faces. General row, and the scene changes to a street-scene. There’s another trip by Harlequin and Columbine, and enters Clown in a hurry with six fish, and he meets Pantaloon. ‘Look’ee here, what I’ve found!’ ‘Oh, fair halves!’ ‘All right! sit down, and you shall have them.’ Pantaloon declines, and Clown knocks him down, and they begin sharing fish. ‘There’s one for you and one for me, another for you and another for me, another for you and another for me.’ ‘How many have you got?’ asks Clown, and Pantaloon says, ‘One—two—three.’ Clown says, ‘No! you’ve got more than three.’ Then, taking one up, he asks, ‘How many is that?’—‘One.’ Taking another up, ‘How many’s that?’ Pantaloon exclaims, ‘Two!’ Clown says, ‘Then two and one is three,’ and takes up another, and asks how many that is. Pantaloon exclaims, ‘Three!’ Clown says, ‘Then three and three makes six.’ Clown then counts his own, and says, ‘I’ve only got three; you must give me these three to make me six. That’s fair halves. Ain’t you satisfied?’ ‘No!’ ‘Then take that,’ and he knocks him over with a fish.
“The next scene is a public-house—‘The Freemasons’ Arms, a select club held here.’ After trip by Harlequin and Columbine, enters Clown and Pantaloon. ‘Look’ee here! it’s a public-house! let’s have half a pint of half-and-half.’ Clown hollows, ‘Now ramrod!’ meaning landlord, and he comes on. ‘Why don’t you attend to gentlemen?’ ‘What’s your pleasure, sir?’ ‘Half a pint of half-and-half for me and my friend.’ He brings a tumbler, which Harlequin breaks, and it comes in half. ‘Hallo!’ cries Clown; ‘this is rum half-and-half! Here’s half for you and half for me.’
“Then they say, ‘I say, here’s somebody coming.’ Enter two Freemasons, who give each other the sign by shaking both hands, bumping up against each other, whispering in each other’s ear, and going into the public-house. Clown then calls the landlord, and says he belongs to the club. Landlord asks him for the sign. Clown says he’s got it over the door. He then takes Pantaloon and shakes his hands, and bumps him, and asks if that is the sign. The landlord says ‘No.’ ‘Is that it?’ ‘No, this is,’ and he gives Clown a spank; and he passes it to Pantaloon, and knocks him down. ‘That’s the sign; now we’ve got it between us.’ ‘Yes, and I’ve got the best half.’
“Clown says, ‘Never mind, we will get in;’ and he goes to the door and knocks, when the club descends and strikes them on the head. Clown then tells Pantaloon to go and knock, and he’ll watch and see where it comes from. The club comes down again, and knocks Pantaloon on the head; but Clown sees from whence it comes and pulls a man in fleshings out of the window. Clown and Pantaloon pursues him round stage, and he knocks them both over, and jumps through a trap in the window with a bottle on it, marked ‘Old Tom,’ and a scroll falls down, written ‘Gone to blazes.’ Pantaloon follows, and flap falls, on which is written, ‘To be left till called for.’ Clown is about to follow, when gun fires and scroll falls with ‘Dead letter’ on it. Pantaloon is bundled out by landlord and others; general row; policemen springing rattles, fireworks, &c.
“There are from four to five comic scenes like this. But it would take too long to describe them. Besides, we don’t do the same scenes every evening, but vary them each night.
“Then comes the catch, or the dark scene, in which Clown, Pantaloon, Harlequin, and Columbine are in the dark, and seize one another.
“You see the poetry is always beautifully adapted to ourselves. They’ve very clever fairies.
“We in generally finale with that there:
“Then the bell rings, and the man who keeps order cries out, ‘Pass out! pass out!’
“The performance generally takes from one hour and a half to an hour and three-quarters, and we do three of ’em a night. It makes the perspiration run off you, and every house I have a wet shirt. The only rest I have is with my boy singing ‘Hot codlins.’ When they call for the song I say, ‘Yes, yes; all right; you shall have them; only there’s a chip of mine will sing it for me,’ and I introduce my little boy—of four then—to sing.
“The general pay for Clowns at penny exhibitions is averaging from twenty to twenty-five shillings a-week. You can say without exaggeration, that there are twenty of these penny exhibitions in London. They always produce a new pantomime at Christmas; and all the year round, in summer as well as winter, they bring ’em out, when business is shy, for a draw, which they always find them answer.
“A Clown that can please at a penny gaff, is capable of giving satisfaction at any theatre, for the audience is a very difficult one to entertain. They have no delicacy in ’em, and will hiss in a moment if anything displeases them.
“A pantomime at a penny exhibition will run at Christmas three weeks or a month, if very successful; and during that time it’s played to upwards of twelve hundred persons a-night, according to the size of the house, for few penny ones hold more than four hundred, and that’s three times a-night. The Rotunda in the Blackfriars’-road, and the Olympic Circus in the Lower Marsh, Lambeth, do an immense business, for they hold near a thousand each, and that’s three thousand spectators the night.
“When the pantomime is on we only do a little comic singing before it begins playing.”
A tall, fine-looking young fellow, with a quantity of dark hair, which he wore tucked behind his ears, obliged me with his experience as a clown at the fairs. He came to me dressed in a fashionable “paletot,” of a gingerbread colour, which, without being questioned on the subject, he told me he had bought in Petticoat Lane for three shillings.
I have seldom seen a finer-built youth than this clown, for he was proportioned like a statue. The peculiarity of his face was that, at the junction of the forehead with the nose there was a rising, instead of a hollow, somewhat like that which is seen in Roman antiquities.
His face, whilst talking, was entirely without emotion, and he detailed the business outside the show, on the parade, in a sing-song voice, like a child saying its lesson; and although he often said “This makes ’em shout with laughter,” his own face remained as solemn as a parish clerk’s.
He furnished me with the following particulars of his life:—
“On and off, I’ve been clowning these twelve year. Previous to that time, I have done busking in public-houses, and comic singing, and ballet performing at penny exhibitions; as well as parading outside shows at fairs. I’ve done clowning at near every place, at fairs and in the streets, along with a school of acrobats, and at circuses, and at penny gaffs, and at the Standard, and such-like. I first commenced some twelve years ago, at Enfield fair. It was a travelling concern I was with,—the ‘Thespian Temple,’ or Johnson’s Theatre,—where I was engaged to parade on the outside as a walking gentleman. There was no clown for the pantomime, for he had disappointed us, and of course they couldn’t get on without one; so, to keep the concern going, old Johnson, who knew I was a good tumbler, came up to me, and said ‘he had nanti vampo, and your nabs must fake it;’ which means,—We have no clown, and you must do it. So I done the clowning on the parade, and then, when I went inside, I’d put on a pair of Turkish trousers, and a long cloak, and hat and feathers, to play ‘Robert, duke of Normandy,’ in the first piece.
“You see the performances consisted of all gag. I don’t suppose anybody knows what the words are in the piece. Everybody at a show theatre is expected to do general business, and when you’re short of people (as we was at Johnson’s, for we played ‘Robert, duke of Normandy,’ with three men and two girls), Clown is expected to come on and slip a cloak over his dress, and act tragedy in the first piece. We don’t make up so heavy for the clown for fairs, only a little dab of red on the cheeks, and powder on the face; so we’ve only just got to wipe off the ‘slop’ when it’s in the way. You looks rather pale, that’s all. The dress is hidden by the one we put over it.
“The plot of ‘Robert, duke of Normandy,’ is this: He and his slave Piccolo come in; and after a little business between them, all gagging, he says, ‘Slave! get back to the castle!’ he answers, ‘Your orders shall be attended to!’ Then he says, ‘At the peril of your life, and prevent the fair Angeline to escape!’ That’s the first scene. In the second, two of Robert’s slaves attack his rival, and then Robert rushes in and pretends to save him. He cries ‘Hold! two to one!’ The men go off, saying, ‘Well, we part as friends! when next we meet, we meet as foes!’ As soon as Robert leaves the rival the lady comes in, and tells him she is flying from Robert’s castle, and that Robert has seduced her, and seeks her life. She tells him that the man who just left him is he. ‘It is false!’ he says; ‘that is my friend!’ She cries, ‘Test him!’ ‘But how?’ he asks. She replies, ‘Follow me to the statue, at the bottom of the grove, and then I will tell you!’ Then the third comes on. Enter Robert and slave, and the marble statue discovered: that is, it is supposed to be, but it is only Angeline dressed up. He gives the slave instructions to put a ring on the finger of the statue—for he is supposed to have dealings with Old Nick, and that every time he put a ring on the statue he can demand a victim. He tells the slave to place a ring on the finger, and pronounce these words: ‘When it may please your most gracious majesty to seek your husband, to find a victim, you will find him here!’ ‘No, no, not here—there!’ pointing to Robert. The Duke half draws his sword, and exclaims, ‘Slave! what ho!’ without touching him. Enters the rival, who demands satisfaction of Robert; who says, ‘What can I do to satisfy you?’ for he’s in a deuce of a go now. He then tells him to kneel to the statue, and swear he is not Robert, duke of Normandy. Instead of that he calls to the servant, and tells him to put the ring on; but Robert, the Duke, is in a deuce of a way, tearing his hair. The servant does it, and exclaims, ‘I have done it; but would you believe it, when I placed it on the finger, the finger became collapsed!’ Robert cries, ‘Slave, thou art a liar! if I find that it is false I will cleave thee to the earth!’ Robert examines the finger, and exclaims, ‘Alas! it is too true!’ and he kneels to the statue and says, ‘I swear that I am’—and he’s going to say, ‘not duke of Normandy,’ but the statue is too quick for him, and adds, ‘Robert, duke of Normandy!’ And then the comic slave pops his head round, and pronounces, ‘Oh, the devil!’ Then the rival stabs him, and he falls down wounded, and then he’s triumphant; and a pen’orth of blue fire finishes the piece; and then ding! ding! dong! and down goes the curtain. We always have blue fire,—a pen’orth each house,—and that makes it go. Sometimes there are two friends in the piece; but it all depends upon whether the piece is powerfully cast or not. We usually knocks the two friends into one, or does away with ’em all together. ‘Robert, duke of Normandy,’ is a never-failing fair piece, and we always does it every year. That and ‘Blue Beard, or Female Curiosity,’ and ‘Fair Rosamond, or the Bower of Woodstock,’ are our stock pieces. After the curtain has been down three minutes it goes up again, and the heavy goes in and says,—
“Then all of us at the sides put their fingers in their mouths and howl like Indians. There’s generally a cue given of ‘Now, demons.’ After that the heavy man says:—
We called him russet-booted, because he had been playing the lover in the first piece. At Richardson’s they called him ‘Spangled Harlequin,’ but old Johnson couldn’t do that, he hadn’t no wardrobe. Then the heavy man continues:—
Then he goes on:—
Then I cried, ‘Hulloa! here we are!’ and the sports begin.
“The first trip, as we calls it—a dance, to use your terms—is Harlequin comes in with Columbine for a hornpipe. If he can’t dance, Clown, as soon as he begins, cries, ‘Here we are!’ and rushes in and drives them off.
“After that, Clown runs on and says, ‘Here we are!’ and knocks Pantaloon down; who exclaims, ‘Oh! ain’t I got the tooth-ache!’ Clown says, ‘Let me feel your tooth. Oh, it’s quite loose! I’ll get a bit of string and soon have it out.’ Clown goes off for string, Pantaloon singing out, ‘Murder! murder!’ Clown returns with string and a pistol, and then ties the string, and cries, ‘Here goes one, and now it’s two, and here goes three,’ and fires and pulls a wooden tooth, as big as your fist, with four sharp prongs to it. I’ve had these teeth often as big as a quartern loaf, but I’m talking of my first appearance. Pantaloon says, ‘Here, that’s my tooth!’ and Clown replies, ‘So it is,’ and hits him on the head with it. Then he asks Pantaloon if he’s better; but he answers, ‘No, I’m worse. Oh! oh! I’ve got a cold in my gum!’ Then a red-hot poker is introduced, and he burns him with it all round the stage. That concludes the first scene. Then there’s another trip, a would-be polka or so; and then comes the bundle-scene. Enter a Yorkshireman—it’s mostly Harlequins do this, because most of the others are outside parading, to keep the crowd together—he’s got a smockfrock on and russet boots at Johnson’s, and he says, ‘I’ve coome up here to Lunnon to see my Dolly. I feel rather dry, and I’ll just gi’ in here to get half-a-point of yale. I’ll just leave my bunnel outside, and keep a strict eye on it, for they say as how Lunnon has plenty of thieves in it.’ Enter Clown, very cautiously. He sees the bundle, and calls Pantaloon. He tells Pantaloon, ‘I must have it, because I want it.’ He goes and picks up the bundle, and says to Pantaloon, ‘I shouldn’t wonder but what this bundle belongs to——’ ‘Me,’ the Yorkshireman says, and the Clown says, ‘Ah, I thought so;’ and then he takes Pantaloon’s hand, and says, ‘Come along, little boy, we shall get into trouble,’ and leads him off. They come on again, and this time Clown tells Pantaloon to get it; so he goes and picks up the bundle, and Yorkshireman knocks him down. Clown runs off and Pantaloon after. Clown then returns on his belly, drawing himself on with his hands. He gets the bundle in his mouth, and is just going off when Yorkshireman turns round, and Clown seeing him, gives the bundle to Pantaloon, and says, ‘Hold this.’ Yorkshireman seizes Clown and tells him he wants his bundle. Pantaloon having run away with it, Clown says, ‘I haven’t got it, starch me’ (that means, ‘search me’); and there is a regular run over the stage crying ‘Hot beef! hot beef!’ (instead of ‘Stop thief!’) The Yorkshireman collars Pantaloon, and says, ‘I’ll take you to the station-house,’ and Clown exclaims, ‘Yes, and I’ll take this bundle down the lane’ (meaning Petticoat-lane, because there is a sale for anything there). Then comes the catch-scene as we call it; that is, they all come on in the dark, Clown singing, ‘Puss, puss! have you seen my pussy?’ Then in pops the fairy, and cries, ‘Hold! your magic sports is run, and thus I step between.’ Pantaloon adds, ‘Aye, it’s all so gay;’ and Clown cries, ‘Yes, and all serene;’ and the fairy says, ‘And with my magic wand I change the scene.’ Then everybody sings:—
“Then the curtain falls, and Clown puts his head out on one side and exclaims, ‘It’s all,’ and Pantaloon pops out at the other side and adds, ‘over.’
“The handing man, who has done Robert, then shouts out from the top, ‘Pass out!’ in a sepulchral voice, and a door opens in the side of the stage for the people to leave by. That day I was with old Johnson—we used to call him ‘Snuffy Johnson,’ ’cos he carried a lot of snuff in his waistcoat pocket—we were very busy, and there was a good many people waiting on the outside to come in, so we only did about two of them regular performances; and then about six o’clock in the evening the crowd got so great, old Johnson used to hollow through the parade-door, over people’s heads, ‘John Aderley,’ just as we had commenced playing, and that meant ‘Cut it short.’ We used to finish it up sharp then, and finish all up in six or seven minutes. We used to knock Robert the Devil into a very little space, doing the scenes, but cutting them short; and as for the pantomime, we had scarcely commenced with ‘Two more slaves will I rise from out the unfathomable deep,’ than we were singing, ‘Our pantomime’s done, here’s an end to our fun.’ Sometimes the people would grumble awful, and at others they laughed to see how they was swindled.
“I got on very fair on my first appearance as Clown, considering the circumstances, but I had, you see, four of the best parading comic men opposing me. There was Teddy W—— as Silly Billy, and Black Sambo as Black Fop, and Funny Felix as ring clown, and Steve Sanderson, another clown, at Frazier’s Circus, next door to us; and we didn’t stand much chance at clowning alongside of them, as they’re the best paraders out. Besides, Frazier’s booth took nearly all the ground up; and as we drawed up on the ground (that is, with the parade-carriages) late on Sunday evening, we were obliged to have a plot next to the Circus, and we had the town pump right in the audience part, close to the first seat in the gallery, and the Obelisk—or rather a cross it is—took up one side of the stage, which next day we used as the castle in Blue Beard, when the girl gets up on a ladder to the top of the railings, which had a shutter on ’em, and that was Fatima looking out from the spire of the castle for her Salem. Ah! ’twas a great hit, for we put an old scene round it, and it had a capital effect.
“What we do when we go out clowning to a travelling theatre is this. This is what I did at Enfield: we arrived late and drawed up the parade-carriages on the ground, which the gov. had gone on a-head to secure. Then we went to sleep for awhile—pitched on a shutter underneath the parade-carriages, for it had been wet weather, and we couldn’t sleep on the canvas for the booth, for it had been sopped with rain at Edmonton fair. As soon as it was break of day we begun getting up the booth, and being short-handed it took us till three o’clock before we was ready. First we had to measure our distances and fix the parade-waggons. Then we planted our king pole on the one in the centre; then we put our back-pole on the one near the parade; then we put on our ridge at top, and our side-rails; and then we put our side-ridges, and sling our rafters. We then roll the tilt up, which is for the roof, and it gets heavy with dirt, and we haul it up to the top and unroll it again and fasten it again; then we fix the sides up, with shutters about six feet square, which you see on the top of the travelling parade-carriages. We fixes up the theatre and the seats which we take with us. All the scenes roll up, and is done up in bundles. The performers drop under the parade-waggons, and there’s a sacking up to divide the men’s part from the women. There’s a looking-glass—sometimes an old bit or a two-penny one starred, or any old thing we can get hold of—and the gov. gives you out your dress. We always provide our own slips and such-like.
“When we parade outside, it all depends upon what kind of Pantaloon you’ve got with you, as to what business you can make. When we first come out on the parade all the company is together, and we march round, form a half-circle, or dress it, as we say, while the band plays ‘Rule Britannia,’ or some other operatic air. Then the manager generally calls out, ‘Now, Mr. Merryman, state the nature of the performances to be given here to-day.’ Then I come forward, and this is the dialogue: ‘Well, Mr. Martin, what am I to tell them?’ ‘The truth, sir! what they’ll see here to-day.’ ‘Well, if they stop long enough they’ll see a great many people, I shouldn’t wonder.’ ‘No, no, sir, I want you to tell them what they’ll see inside our theatre.’ ‘Well, sir, they’ll see a splendid drama by first-rate performers, of Robert Dooke of Normandy, with a variety of singing and dancing, with a gorgeous and comic pantomime, with new dresses and scenery, and everything combined to make this such an entertainment as was never before witnessed in this town, and all for the small charge of three shillings.’ ‘No, no, Mr. Merryman, threepence.’ ‘What! threepence? I shan’t perform at a threepenny show.’ And then I pretend to go down the steps as if leaving; he pulls me back, and says, ‘Come here, sir; what are you going to do?’ ‘I shan’t spoil my deputation playing for threepence.’ ‘But you must understand, Merryman, we intend giving them one and all a treat, that the working-classes may enjoy theirselves as well as noblemen.’ ‘Then if that’s the case I don’t mind, but only for this once.’
“Then I begin spouting again and again, always ending up with ‘to be witnessed for the low charge of threepence.’ Then Pantaloon comes up to say what he’s going to do, and I give him the ‘nap,’ and knock him on his back. He cries ‘I’m down,’ and I turn him over and pick him up, and say, ‘And now you’re up.’ Then the company form a half set and do a quadrille. When they have scrambled through that, Clown will do a comic dance, and then some burlesque statues. This is the way them statues are done: I go inside and get a birch-broom, and put a large piece of tilt or old cloth round me, and stand just inside the curtains at the entrance from the parade, ready to come out when wanted. Then the male portion of the company get just to the top of the steps, and Pantaloon says to one of them, ‘Did you speak?’ He says, ‘When?’ and Pantaloon says, ‘Now;’ and the whole lot make a noise, hollowing out, ‘Oh, oh, oh!’ as if they was astonished, but it’s only to attract attention. Then the gong strikes, and the trumpets flourishes, and everybody shouts, ‘Hi, hi! look here!’ Then, naturally, all the people turn towards the caravan to see what’s up. Then they clear a passage-way from the front to the entrance and back, and bring me forth with this bit of cloth before me. The music flourishes again, and they make a tremendous tumult, crying out, ‘Look here! look here!’ and when all are looking I drop the cloth, and then I stand in the position of Hercules, king of Clubs, with a birch-broom across my shoulders, and an old hat on a-top of my wig. Then the band strikes up the statue music, and I goes through the statues; such as Ajax defying the lightning, and Cain killing his brother Abel; and it finishes up with the fighting and dying Gladiator. As a finale I do a back-fall, and pretend to be dead. The company then picks me up and carry me, lying stiff, on their shoulders round the parade. They carry me inside, and shout out, ‘All in to begin; now we positively commence.’ Then they drive everybody in off the parade. When the public have taken their seats then we come strolling out, one at a time, till we all get out on the parade again, because the place isn’t sufficiently full. It’s what we call ‘making a sally.’ The checktakers at the door prevent anybody leaving if they want to come out again.
“Then I get up to some nonsense again. Perhaps I’ll get up a lot of boys out of the fair, and make ’em sit on the parade in a row, and keep a school, as I call it. I get an old property fiddle, and I tell them, when I play they must sing. Then I give out a hymn. The bow has a lot of notches in it, and there’s a bit of wood sticking up in the fiddle; so that when I plays it goes ‘ricketty, ricketty,’ like. This is the hymn I gives out:—
“Of course, when they sings, they make a horrible noise, or even if they dont, I begin to wallop them with my bow. I then tell them I must teach them something easier first. Then I give them—
Then I finish up by putting on the boys a lot of masks, and some have old soldiers’ coats; and I give them implements of war, such as old brooms or sticks, and then I put them through their military exercises. I stand in front, with the birch-broom as my gun, and I tell them they must do as I do. Then I cry, ‘File arms,’ and all mark their own muskets. I tell them to lay them all down; and after they have laid down their arms I tell them to shoulder arms, which makes a shout, because they haven’t got no arms. One boy, who is put up to it, says, ‘I’ve got no arms;’ I go up to him and catch hold of his arms, and ask him what he calls ‘these here.’ Then I make him put them on his shoulders, and tell him, that’s ‘shoulder arms.’ Then I tell them to ground arms, and I do it at the time, stooping down and putting my arms on the ground. I then call them to attention, and up comes the Pantaloon on a basket-horse, and I tell them they are going to be reviewed by the Duke. I give them all the implements again, and put them to stand attention. Pantaloon gallops round them, reviewing. He wears a large flap cocked-hat and soldier’s old coat. He makes a bit of fun with his horse, making it kick, and breaking the ranks of my soldiers. Then I quarrel with him about that, and he says, ‘He’s a right to do as he likes, because he’s my superior horse-ifer.’ Then he orders me to the other end of the parade, to stand attention, with my back towards the boys. Then he tells them to ride about face and charge, and they all run and charge me in behind. They run two or three times round the parade, still charging me, until I run inside to the theatre, and all the company shout out, ‘All in to begin; we are now positively to commence.’ We then get them in off the parade again, and if the place is full begin; if not, we gradually crawl out again one by one, and one of the girls dances a hornpipe or a Highland fling. We then make a sally, ‘All in again,’ and by that time we generally begin.
“This is the parade business that is most popular at fairs; we do a few other things, but they are all much of a muchness. It’s very hard work; and I have worked, since being with Snuffy Johnson, seventeen hours of a-day; but then we have not had so much to do on the outside. Sometimes I’ve been so tired at night, that I’ve actually laid down in my dress and never washed, but slept like that all night.
“The general pay for a clown, during fair-time, is 5s. or 6s. a-day, but that usually ends in your moving on the first day; then 4s. on the second, and, perhaps, 3s. on the third. The reason is, that the second and third day is never so good as the first. The excuse is, that business is not so good, and expenses are heavy; and if you don’t like it, you needn’t come again. They don’t stand about what you agree for; for instance, if it’s a wet day and you don’t open, there’s no pay. Richardson’s used, when the old man was alive, to be more money, but now it’s as bad as the rest of ’em. If you go on shares with a sharing company it averages about the same. We always share at the drum-head at night, when all’s over. It’s usually brought out between the stage and the bottom seat of the gallery. The master or missus counts out the money. The money on the drum-head may, if it’s a good fair, come to 16l. or 18l., or, as it most usually is, 9l. or 10l. I have known us to share 1l. a-piece afore now; and I’ve known what it is to take 10d. for a share. We usually take two fairs a-week, or we may stay a night or two after the fair’s over, and have a bespeak night. The wages of a clown comes to—if you average it—1l. a-week all the year round, and that’s puffing it at a good salary, and supposing you to be continually travelling. Very likely, at night we have to pull down the booth after performing all day, and be off that night to another fair—15 or 16 miles off it may be—and have to build up again by the next afternoon. The women always ride on the top of the parade carriages, and the men occasionally riding and shoving up behind the carriages up hill. The only comfort in travelling is a short pipe, and many a time I’ve drowned my woes and troubles in one.
“The scene of sharing at the drum-head is usually this,—while the last performance is going on the missus counts up the money; and she is supposed to bring in all the money she has taken, but that we don’t know, and we are generally fiddled most tremendous. When the theatre’s empty, she, or him, generally says, ‘Now lads, please, now ladies! it’s getting late;’ and when they have all mustered it’s generally the cry, ‘We’ve had a bad fair!’ The people seldom speak. She then takes the number of the company,—we generally averages some sixteen performers,—and after doing so she commences sharing, taking up two or three shares, according to the ground-rent; one then to herself for taking money; then for the husband being there, (for they don’t often perform); then they takes shares for the children, for they makes them go on for the fairies, and on our parade. Snuffy Johnson used to take two shares for the wardrobes and fittings, and that is the most reasonable of any of ’em, for they mostly take double that; indeed, we always took six. Then there are two shares for ground-rent, and two for travelling expenses. The latter two shares depend entirely upon the fair; for the expenses are just the same whether we takes money or not, so that if it’s a bad fair, more has to be deducted, and that’s the worse for us, on both sides. That makes twelve or thirteen shares to be deducted before the men touch a penny for themselves. Any strolling professional who reads that will say, ‘Well, ’tis very considerate; for it’s under the mark, and not over.’
“When we have finished at one fair, if we want to go to another the next day, as soon as the people have gone in for the last performance we commence taking down the pay-box, and all the show-fittings on the outside, and all that isn’t wanted for the performance. As soon as the mummers have done their first slang, if they are not wanted in the pantomime they change themselves and go to work pulling down. When the pantomime’s over, every one helps till all’s packed up; then sharing takes place, and we tramp on by night to the next fair. We then camp as well as we can till daylight, if it isn’t morning already, and to work we go building for the fair; and in general, by the time we’ve done building, it’s time to open.
“I’ve travelled with ‘Star’s Theatre Royal,’ and ‘Smith and Webster’s,’ (alias Richardson’s), and ‘Frederick’s Theatre,’ and ‘Baker’s Pavilion,’ and ‘Douglass’s travelling Shakspearian Saloon;’ (he’s got scenes from Shakspear’s plays all round the front, and it’s the most splendid concern on the road), and I’ve done the comic business at all of them. They are all conducted on the same principle, and do the same kind of business, as that I’ve described to you.
“When we’re travelling it depends upon the business as to what we eat. They talk of strolling actors living so jollily and well, but I never knew it fall to my share. What we call a mummer’s feed is potatoes and herrings, and they always look out for going into a town where there’s plenty of fresh herrings. A fellow we called Nancy Dawson was the best hand at herrings. I’ve known him go into a tavern and ask for the bill of fare, and shout out, ‘Well, Landlord, what have you got for dinner?’ Perhaps he’d say, ‘There’s beef and veal, sir, very nice—just ready;’ and then he’d say, ‘No, I’m sick of meat; just get me a nice bloater!’ and if it came to much more than a penny there was a row. If we are doing bad business, and we pass a field of swedes, there’s a general rush for the pull. The best judges of turnips is strolling professionals. I recollect, in Hampshire, once getting into a swede field, and they was all blighted: we pulled up a hundred, I should think, but when we cut them open they was all flaxy inside, and we, after all, had to eat the rind. We couldn’t get a feed. Sausages and fagots (that’s made of all the stale sausages and savaloys, and unsightly bits of meat what won’t sell) is what we gets hold of principally. The women have to make shifts as we do. We always get plenty of beer, even when we can’t get money; for we can sing a song or so, and then the yokels stand something: besides, there’s hardly a town we go into without some of the yokels being stage-struck, and they feel quite delighted to be among the professionals, and will give us plenty of beer if we’ll talk to them about acting.
“It’s impossible to say how many clowns there are working at canvas theatres. There’s so many meddling at it,—not good uns, but trying to be. I can mention fifty, I am sure, by name. I shouldn’t think you would exaggerate, if you was to say there was from one hundred and fifty to two hundred who call themselves clowns. Many of the first-rate clowns now in London have begun at strolling. There’s Herring, and Lewis, and Nelson, and plenty more, doing well now.
“It’s a hard life, and many’s the time we squeedge a laugh out, when it’s like killing us to do it. I’ve never known a man break down at a fair, done up, for, you see, the beer keeps us up; but I’ve known one chap to faint on the parade from exhaustion, and then get up, as queer as could be, and draw twopence and go and have a fish and bread. A woman at an oyster-stall alongside of the theatre give him a drop of beer. He was hearty and hungry, and had only joined lately,—regular hard up; so he went two days without food. When we shared at night he went and bought a ham-bone, and actually eat himself asleep, for he dropped off with the bone in his hand.”
A man who had passed many years of his life as jester at the cheap circuses, or penny equestrian shows frequenting the fairs in the neighbourhood of London, obliged me with the following details:—
“There are only two kinds of clowns, the stage and the circus clown, only there is different denominations: for instance, the clown at the fair and the clown at the regular theatre, as well as the penny gaff (when they give pantomimes there), are one and the same kind of clown, only better or worse, according to the pay and kind of performance; but it’s the same sort of business. Now the circus clown is of the same kind as those that go about with schools of acrobats and negro serenaders. He is expected to be witty and say clever things, and invent anything he can for the evening’s performance; but the theatre clown is expected to do nothing but what enters into the business of the piece. Them two are the main distinctions we make in the perfession.
“I’ve travelled along with only two circuses; but then it’s the time you stop with them, for I was eighteen months along with a man of the name of Johnson, who performed at the Albion, Whitechapel, and in Museum-street, opposite Drury-lane (he had a penny exhibition then), and for above two years and a half along with Veale, who had a circus at the Birdcage, Hackney-road, and at Walworth.
“At Museum-street we only had one ‘prad,’ which is slang for pony, although we used to introduce all the circus business. We had jugglers, and globe-runners, and tight-rope dancers also. We never had no ring built, but only sawdust on the stage, and all the wings taken out. They used to begin with a chant and a hop (singing and dancing), after which there was tight-rope hopping. As soon as ever the rope was drawn up, Johnson, who had a whip in his hand, the same as if it was a regular circus, used to say, ‘Now, Mr. Merryman.’ Then I’d run on and answer, ‘Here I am, sir, all of a lump, as the old man said what found the sixpence. I’m up and dressed, like a watchbox. What shall I have the pleasure for to come for to go, for to go for to fetch, for to fetch for to carry, to oblige you?’ I usually wore a ring dress, with red rings round my trunks, and a fly to correspond. The tights had straight red lines. My wig was a white one with a red comb. Then Johnson would say, ‘Have the pleasure to announce Madame Leone.’ Then I give it: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is Madame Leone, a young lady that threw her clothes into bed and hung herself upon the door-nail.’ Then she just gets up on the rope, and I go and sit down as if I was going to sleep. Mr. Johnson then says, ‘Come, sir, you’re going to sleep; you’ve got your eyes shut.’ I answer, ‘I beg your pardon, sir, I was not asleep.’ And then he says I was, and I contradict him, and add, ‘If I had my eyes shut, I am the first of the family that went to sleep so.’ Then he asks how that is? and I reply, ‘Because they were afraid of having their pockets picked;’ and he says, ‘Nonsense! all your family was very poor, there was nothing in their pockets to pick;’ and I add, ‘Yes, but there was the stitches though.’ All these puns and catches goes immense. ‘Now, sir,’ he continues, ‘chalk the rope.’ I say, ‘Whose place is it?’ and he replies, ‘The fool’s.’ ‘Then do it yourself,’ I answer. And then we go on in this style. He cries, ‘What did you say, sir?’ ‘I said I’d do it myself.’ ‘Now, Madame Leone, are you ready?’ and she nods; and then I tell the music to toodelloo and blow us up. She then does a step or two—a little of the polka—and retires, and I am told to chalk the rope again, and this is our talk: ‘Oh dear, oh dear! there’s no rest for the wicked. Sir, would you be so kind, so obliging, as to inform me why I chalk the top of the rope?’ ‘To prevent the young lady from slipping down, sir.’ ‘Oh, indeed! then I’ll chalk underneath the rope.’ He then asks, ‘What are you doing of, sir?’ ‘Why didn’t you tell me when I chalked the top it’s to prevent the young lady from slipping down?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘Then I chalked underneath, to prevent her from slipping up again. Would you oblige me with your hand?’ Then I look at it and say, ‘Plenty of corns in it; you’ve done some hard work in your time.’ ‘I have, sir.’ ‘Beautiful nails, too;’ and then I rub the chalk on his hand, and when he asks what I’m doing of, I say ‘Chalking it.’ ‘What for, sir?’ ‘Why, sir, to keep it from slipping into other people’s pockets.’ Then he gives me a click of whip and says, ‘Out of the way, sir! Now, Madame Leone, proceed.’
“When she’s finished the dance I cry, ‘Now I’ll get on the rope and have a try,’ and I mount very courageously, crying,