“The Ballet,” said a street-dancer to me, “is a very favourite amusement with the people who go to cheap penny theatres. They are all comic, like pantomimes; indeed, they come under that term, only there’s no comic scenes or transformations. They’re like the story of a pantomime, and nothing else. Nearly all the popular clowns are famous for their ballet performances; they take the comic parts mostly, and the pantaloons take the old men’s parts. Ballets have been favourites in this country for forty or fifty year. There is always a comic part in every ballet. I have known ballets to be very popular for ever since I can remember,—and that’s thirty years. At all the gaffs, where they are afraid to speak their parts, they always have a ballet. Every one in London, and there are plenty of them, have one every night, for it’s very seldom they venture upon a talking play.
“In all ballets the costume is fanciful. The young ladies come on in short petticoats, like them at the opera. Some of the girls we have are the same as have been in the opera corps-de-ballet. Mr. Flexmore, the celebrated clown, is a ballet performer, and there’s not a greater man going for the ballet that he appears in, called ‘The Dancing Scotchman.’ There’s Paul Herring, too; he’s very famous. He’s the only man I know of that can play Punch, for he works the speaker in his mouth; and he’s been a great Punch-and-Judy man in his time. He’s very clever in ‘The Sprite of the Vineyard, or the Merry Devil of Como.’ They’ve been playing it at Cremorne lately, and a very successful affair it was.
“When a professional goes to a gaff to get an engagement, they in general inquires whether he is a good ballet performer. Everything depends upon that. They also acts ballets at some of the concert-rooms. At the Rising Sun, Knightsbridge, as well as the Brown Bear, Knightsbridge, they play them for a week at a time, and then drop them for a fortnight for a change, and perhaps have tumblers instead; then they have them again for a week, and so on. In Ratcliffe Highway, at Ward’s Hoop and Grapes, and also the Albion, and the Prince Regent, they always play ballets at stated intervals. Also the Effingham Saloon, Whitechapel, is a celebrated ballet-house. The admission to all these houses is 2d. I believe. At the Highway, when the ships are up and the sailors ashore, business is very brisk, and they are admitted to the rooms gratuitously; and a fine thing they make of them, for they are good-hearted fellows and don’t mind what money they spend. I’ve known one who was a little way gone to chuck half-a-crown on the stage to some actor, and I’ve known others to spend a pound at one bit,—standing to all round! One night, when I was performing ballets at the Rising Sun, Knightsbridge, Mr. Hill, the Queen’s coachman, threw me two half-crowns on to the stage. We had been supposed to be fighting,—I and my mate,—and to have got so exhausted we fell down, and Mr. Hill came and poured three glasses of port-wine negus down our throats as we laid. I’ve repeatedly had 1s. and 6s. thrown to me by the grooms of the different people of nobility, such as the Russells and various other families.
“A good ballet performer will get averaging from a pound to 35s. a-week. They call Paul Herring a star, and he is one, for he always draws wherever he goes. I generally get my 25s., that’s my running price, though I try for my 30s.; but 25s. is about my mark. I have always made Paul Herring my study, and I try to get to perform with him, for he’s the best clown of the day, and a credit to work with.
“It’s impossible to say how many ballet performers there are. There are such a host of them it’s impossible to state that, for they change so. Then a great many are out of employment until Christmas, for that generally fills the vacancies up. My wife does a little in ballets, though she is principally a poses plastique girl. I married my wife off the table.
“One of the most successful ballets is the Statue Blanche. It has been performed at every theatre in London, both the cheap and the regular. The Surrey is an enormous place for it. It came out, I believe, in Grimaldi’s time. It was played a fortnight ago at the Bower, and I took the part of the old man, and I was very successful; so far so, that I got a situation for Christmas. It’s an excellent plot, and runs an hour and a quarter to play.
“It begins with a romantic view, with a cottage on the right hand, and white palings round it, and a quantity of straw laying on the stage. The villagers and the lover come on. Lover goes to cottage door and knocks three times, when lady appears at window. He ballets to her, ‘Will you come down here and dance?’ She comes, and they all do a country dance. At the end of the dance the old man is heard to cough inside cottage. He opens the window and sees the girl outside, and shakes his fist at her. The lover hides behind the lady. He comes out and sends his daughter into cottage, and sends the lover off about his business. He refuses to do so. The old man makes a blow at him with his stick; he makes another, when lover bobs down and stick strikes Pierrot in the face, and knocks him down. This Pierrot is the Simpkin of the ballet, and he’s dressed in white, with long sleeves, and a white face, and white scalp on his head. The ballet is from the French, and its real title is ‘La Statue Blanche,’ though we call it ‘The Statue Blanche.’
“Lover is driven off stage, and old man picks up Simpkin, and ballets to him that he’s very sorry but he thought it was the lover, and tells him to hide under the straw which is on the stage, and that if the lover comes again to lay hold of him, to call assistance. He hides, and old man goes into cottage.
“Lover comes again with villagers carrying flails, and they begin to thresh this straw with Simpkin under it. They thresh him round stage. He knocks at door three times, and the third blow knocks old man in the face. Out he comes staggering. The old man threatens to sack lover. He goes into cottage and brings out lover’s bundle, and throws it to lover, and sends him away. The lover appeals to old man, but all to no use. The lover then ballets to him that he has got no money, so the old man hands his purse, which Simpkin takes and carries up stage. The lover still asks for money, and the old man is astonished, and then turns round and sees Simpkin, and makes him return it. Exit old man and Simpkin into cottage, leaving lover on stage. He leans against wing very disconsolate, when an artist comes on with a scrap-book to sketch the scene. He asks the lover what is the matter, and then he tells him he has a plan if lover will become a sketcher; and if he likes to do so, he will make a statue of him and sell him to the old man, as he deals in antiquities, and by that plan he will be able to gain the girl. They go off, and another old man comes on and knocks at door, which old father opens, and thinking it is lover tumbles him over. He then says he’s very sorry for mistaking him for the lover. They make it up, and the old man says he has plenty of money, and has come to marry the daughter. They embrace, and old father invites old man to step inside and have something to drink. As the second old man is going in, the Simpkin jumps over his head and hides; and old man swears it is the lover, and hunts for him, but can’t find him, and enters cottage. The second scene has got the tea business in it, and the blacking of the old lover’s face. The comic business here is, they are having tea, and Simpkin is waiting on them, and does every thing very clumsy. He carries on the old business of stirring the tea up with a candle, and then he puts the dirty kettle on the cloth and makes a mark; so he thinks for a minute, and then wipes the bottom of the kettle with the old lover’s handkerchief when he is not looking. Then Simpkin steals the milk-jug, and as he is drinking the old father hits him on the stomach, and makes him sputter in old lover’s face, who instantly snatches up the dirty handkerchief to wipe his face, and blacks it all over with the soot from the bottom of the kettle. Then there is some comic business about Simpkin breaking the tea-things, and bursting a coat in two; and then scene changes to a romantic view, with a pedestal in the centre, and statue on it. The old father comes on with the girl and Simpkin, and the villagers, who have all come to view the statue. The old man then calls the artist, and tells him to wind up the statue that he may see how it works. The statue does several positions, and the old man buys it. They all go off but Simpkin, the lady, and the old man. (The statue is still on the pedestal, you know.) The old man cautions Simpkin not to touch the statue, for he’s going away. As soon as he is gone, Simpkin goes and winds it up until he breaks the spring. Then in comes the old man again, and the fool goes to a corner and pretends to be asleep. He is pulled up by the ear and shown what he has done, and is about to be beaten, when girl intercedes and puts the statue to rights. They go off, leaving Simpkin with the statue. Lady returns, and statue jumps down and embraces her. The statue then takes off his helmet and wig, and chucks it at Simpkin, and rushes off with girl, and the clown mounts the pedestal. Enter old man, who ballets that he’ll have a turn as nobody is there. He goes and looks at statue, and perceives that he is in a different position. He turns the handle and Simpkin jumps about, burlesquing what the lover has done. Then Simpkin jumps down, and pushes the old man round stage with a club in his hand. Old man sings out ‘Murder!’ when lover returns with girl and stops Simpkin from knocking him down. They tell the old man they are married, and he joins their hands, and a general dance winds up the performance.
“That’s one of the most successful ballets ever imagined, and in its time has drawn thousands and thousands to see it. I don’t know who wrote the ballet, but I should imagine it was the property of Grimaldi’s father, who was a great pantomimist.
“There’s a new ballet, called ‘The Dream before the Wedding, or the Ploughboy turned Sailor.’ That one depends more upon the lover than the comic man. There’s another, called ‘The Boatman of the Ohio.’ That’s a comic nigger ballet, in which the banjo and bones are introduced; and there’s a very funny duet song, to the tune of ‘Roley poley.’ They both hide in a clock-case to hide from the old man, and they frighten each other, for they put their ugly black faces out and take each other for the devil. Then there’s ‘The Barber and the Beadle.’ The barber is one of Paul Herring’s favourite characters. I’ve done the beadle to his barber. There’s a very first-rate scene in it with the fop,—Jemmy Green he’s called, a cockney sort of a fellow,—and this barber has to shave him, and cuts his nose, and ties him in a chair, and shoves the soap-suds in his mouth. This fop is arranging with the father about the daughter, and the barber ties a line to a pole and fishes off the old man’s wig. The beadle is the father of the girl. It goes immense. I’ve played in it during my time more than 400 times.
“Another famous ballet is ‘The Cobbler and the Tailor.’ There’s a celebrated fight in that, between the tailor with his sleeve-board and goose, and the cobbler with his clam and his awl. The tailor tries to burn me with the goose, and he hunts me all about. We are about twenty minutes fighting. It’s a never-failing fight, that is. The sleeve-boards are split to make a noise at each knock, and so is the clam. There’s one, two, three, four, and a crack on the nob. We keep it up till both are supposed to fall down exhausted. Then there’s crowing ‘Cock-a-doodle-doo’ at each other. We enjoy it just as much as the audience do, for it’s very funny. Although the shirt is sticking to our backs with perspiration, we enter into the sport quite like them in front. We generally prefer winter for this ballet, for it’s hot work; or if it’s in the open air, like in gardens, then it’s very delightful.
“One of the principal things in ballet performing is to be able to do the raps, or slaps, well and quickly. A fellow gives me a clap on the face in the piece, then I have to slap my hands together, and make a noise as if he had given me a tremendous knock down. Of course, the closer the sound is to the blow, the better is the effect; and the art is to do it close. That’s what we call good working. The people, of course, follow with their eye the fist of the striker, and the one struck has his arms down in front, and claps them together. It is the same work as they do in the pantomimes. Another trick is hitting the knuckles when fighting, also striking on the head. That’s done by holding the stick close to the pate, and that takes the blow. On the knuckles the striker aims just above the fingers. It wants a quick eye. A fellow caught me on the nose, at the Bower, the other night, and took the skin off the tip; and there’s the mark now, you see. The principal distinction between pantomimes and ballets is that there are more cascades, and trips, and valleys in pantomimes, and none in ballets.
“A trip is a dance between Harlequin and the Columbine; and cascades and valleys are trundling and gymnastic performances, such as tumbling across the stage on wheels, and catching hold of hands and twirling round.
“We have done a kind of speaking ballet, where there is a little singing and talking just to help out the plot. It is a kind of pantomime sketch. It is entitled, ‘The Magic Mirror, or how to reclaim a drunken Servant.’ I was the author of it, for I’m generally engaged expressly to get up ballets, and occasionally they expect me to do a new one for them. I get from 25s. to 30s. a-week for such an engagement. The scene opens with a chamber in the front of the stage, with a candle on the table nearly burnt out. The clock strikes four. A servant in livery is waiting up for his other servant. He yawns and does the sleepy business. Then he says, ‘Whenever it is Thomas’s day out he stops so very late; master has threatened to discharge him, and he will get the sack. Would that I could reclaim him! I will endeavour to do so. I wish he would return.’ And that’s the cue for the other one off the stage to begin singing ‘I’ve been roving, I’ve been roving,’ &c. Then the honest servant says, ‘He comes! Now then to form a magic looking-glass, wherein he can see his errors. Now to procure four pieces of timber.’ He does so, and makes a square frame or strainer. ‘Now for a few tacks.’ He gets them, and then takes a gauze curtain down from the window, and places it on the back of the frame, which forms a looking-glass. Then lights is turned down on stage, and he puts a candle behind the mirror, which illuminates this gauze, you see. He then hides behind the glass.
“Thomas comes in very tipsy. He does the drunken business, and then says, ‘I’ve had the best of cheer. I’ve been down to farmer Cheer’s, and had the best of ale, and some good gin, and better brandy;’ at which the man behind the frame echoes, ‘Better brandy.’ Thomas is alarmed. He looks around and says, ‘That was the echo.’ To which the voice replies, ‘That was the echo.’ Then they repeat this business; Thomas getting still more nervous. He says, ‘Well, I declare, I’m getting quite melancholy. I’ll see what singing can do to rouse me a little.’ He then begins,—
“The glass takes up ‘Rosin his bo-o-o-o-w.’ The time this is going on, the other servant is dressing himself to represent the other; combing his hair, and painting his face, and everything. Thomas gets quite I don’t know how; and he says, ‘I wonder if I look frightened?’ And he goes to the glass, and the other appears at the same time, and it looks like the reflection in the glass. I’ve had some fools imagine it was the reflection. Thomas says ‘Oh, I look very nice!’ and as he speaks the other opens his mouth too. Then Thomas says, ‘Why I’ve got some black on my nose!’ and he goes to wipe it, and the form behind imitates him.
“He then goes down the stage and returns to glass again. There’s a deal of business carried on. At last Thomas sees the figure turn round whilst he’s looking in front, and then he exclaims, ‘That’s not me! My waistcoat ain’t split up the back! I’ll smash the glass.’ He knocks down the gauze, and out pops the figure, yelling ‘Ah! I’m the glass imp!’ Thomas falls down on the stage, and as the imp walks about, one off the side at the wing thumps the ground at each step with a piece of wood, to mark the steps. Then the servant says, ‘Fe fi fo fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman;’ and Thomas answers, ‘Oh no, Mr. Ghost, I ain’t an Englishman; I’m a Irish woman;’ and there’s a shout at that, of course. The servant continues,—‘Let him be alive, let him be dead,’—and Thomas says ‘I’m as dead as a red herring!’ and there’s another shout. The fellow-servant then catches hold of Thomas by the hair of the head, and tells him to follow him below. Thomas replies ‘Oh don’t! please, don’t, Mr. Ghost! I’ll do anything but follow you below, though you are so good-looking.’ ‘Will you promise to come home early for the future?’ ‘I will.’ ‘And never drink no more brandy nor stout?’ ‘I will.’ The fellow-servant shouts in a hoarse voice, ‘Nay, Slave! not I will, but I will not.’ ‘Not.’ ‘Enough! rise and look at me.’ ‘Oh, I wouldn’t for the world.’ ‘Don’t you know me?’ ‘Oh no! no! no! I never saw you before.’ ‘It’s all right, I’m your friend James: your fellow-servant!’ Then Thomas gets up and sees him, and begins laughing. ‘Oh, I wasn’t frightened: I knew you all the time.’ The other cove then shouts, ‘Fe fi fo fum;’ and down goes Thomas on his face and screams ‘Murder! murder!’ Then James says, ‘Oh, it’s only me; look!’ Then Thomas looks and says, ‘Well, I declare I thought you was the glass imp.’ ‘No, I only played this prank to reclaim you. Has it had its effect?’ ‘It has.’ ‘Then I have gained my end, since you are reformed; and I hope you are reformed.’ ‘I am; and I hope it will be a lesson to my friends in front, and that they will never take a drop too much.’ Then they sing together—
“That pantomimic farce always goes down with wonderful success. It has a regular round of applause, which is everybody clapping as hard as they can. Some of the tavern-keepers, in whose concert-rooms we done this ballet pantomime, don’t much like the wind-up to this piece,—about hoping our friends will take a lesson, and not drink too much. At one place the landlord happened to come just as that line was spoke, and he told me he’d fine me sixpence if I done it again. ‘Why, I ain’t sold a dozen pots of beer through it,’ he says. So I agreed with him to alter the tag to this,—‘and not drink no more than you can carry, for that never did any one any harm, but more is injurious.’ At some of these rooms, if a song is going too long and no drinking, the landlord will come in, and hold his hand up, as a cue for us to leave off and let the drinking begin again. Then the waiters looks the audience up again with their ‘Give your orders, gentlemen; give your orders.’
“This ballet pantomime was quite an innovation, and isn’t strictly ballet, but in the same line.
“Of all ballets, the one that has found the longest run is the ‘Statue Blanche.’ I’ve known it to go a month. All the young ladies in these pieces are regular ballet-girls, and all ‘turned out;’ that is, taught to stand with their dancing position. You know all of them is supposed to be able to kick their nose with their knees. You know they crick them when young, the same as a contortionist or acrobat. They are always practising. You see them in the green-room kicking their legs about. The men have to do the same, except the comic characters that don’t dance. Paul Herring is very clever at these things, and don’t want no practising. He can scratch his head with his foot. He’s the finest clown that ever trod in shoe-leather.
“The green-rooms at the concert-rooms are very tidy. Even at the penny gaffs the men and women have separate rooms. The women there have got their decency the same as at a theatre, and they wouldn’t go there if there wasn’t separate dressing-rooms. In fact, they keep themselves more from the men than the men from them, for they are all madames; and though they only keep a wheelbarrow, they carry themselves as if they had a coach.
“At the concert-rooms they have always a useful set of scenery, about similar to that at the penny gaffs. At some of them you don’t get so good scenery as at the gaffs. There’s in general a romantic scene, and a cottage, and so forth, and that’s all that’s wanted. There’s a regular proscenium to the theatres, with lights in front and all. The most usual manner is to have a couple of figures at the sides holding lights, and curtains behind them, because it answers for the ballets and also for the singing. At some of the concert-rooms there’s no side-entrance to the stage, and then you have to go across the audience dressed in your costume, before you can get on to the stage. It’s horrid, that is. I’ve done it many and many a time at Knightsbridge. It’s very bad, for everything depends upon being discovered when the curtain draws up. Some of the people will say, ‘Oh, that’s nothing; I’ve seen him before.’
“I have repeatedly seen people in front go to the stage and offer their glass to the actor to drink. We are forbid to receive them, because it interferes with business; but we do take it. I’ve seen drink handed on to the stage from three to four times a-night.
“Sometimes, when a dance has pleased the audience, or an acrobat, or a bottle equilibrist, they’ll throw halfpence on to the stage, to reward the performer. We sometimes do this for one another, so as to give the collection a start. We are forbidden to take money when it is thrown on to us, but we do. If a sixpence comes, we in general clap our foot on to it, and then your mate gives you a rap on the face, and we tumble down and put it in our mouth, so that the proprietor shan’t see us. If he saw it done, and he could find it, he’d take it away if he could. I have known a man pick up as much as 3s. after a dance. Then there are generally some one who is not engaged on the establishment, and he comes for what we term ‘the nobbings,’ that’s what is throw’d to him. I’ve known a clog-dancer, of the name of Thompson, to earn as much as 10s. of a night at the various concert-rooms. He’s very clever, and may be seen any night at the Hoop and Grapes, Ratcliffe-highway. He does 108 different steps, and 51 of them are on his toes.
“There’s in general from five to six people engaged in a concert-room performances, and for professionals alone that’ll come to from 30s. to 2l. a-night for expenses for actors and singers. That’s putting down nothing for the conductor, or musicians, or gas. Some of them charge 2d. or 1d. admission, but then there’s something extra put on to the drink. Porter is 5d. a pot, and fourpenny ale is charged 6d.; besides, you can’t have less than 6d. worth of gin-and-water. At such a room as the Nag’s Head in Oxford-street, I’ve known as many as from 200 to 300 go there in the evening; and the Standard, Pimlico, will hold from 400 to 450 people, and I’ve seen that full for nights together. There they only have merely a platform, and seldom do ballets, or Grecian statues, dancing, gymnastics, and various other entertainments, such as ventriloquism. There the admission is 4d., and on benefit occasions 6d.”
“I am the father of two little girls who perform on the tight-rope and on stilts. My wife also performs, so that the family by itself can give an entertainment that lasts an hour and a half altogether. I don’t perform myself, but I go about making the arrangements and engagements for them. Managers write to me from the country to get up entertainments for them, and to undertake the speculation at so much. Indeed I am a manager. I hire a place of amusement, and hire it at so much; or if they won’t let it, then I take an engagement for the family. I never fancied any professional work myself, except, perhaps, a bit of sculpture. I am rather partial to the poses plastiques, but that’s all.
“Both my little girls are under eight years of age, and they do the stilt-waltzing, and the eldest does the tight-rope business as well. Their mother is a tight-rope dancer, and does the same business as Madame Sayin used to appear in, such as the ascension on the rope in the midst of fireworks. We had men in England who had done the ascension before Madame Sayin came out at Vauxhall, but I think she was the first woman that ever did it in this country. I remember her well. She lodged at a relation of mine during her engagement at the Gardens. She was a ugly little woman, very diminutive, and tremendously pitted with the small-pox. She was what may be called a horny woman, very tough and bony. I’ve heard my father and mother say she had 20l. a-night at Vauxhall, and she did it three times a-week; but I can’t vouch for this, as it was only hearsay.
“My eldest little girl first began doing the stilts in public when she was three-and-a-half years old. I don’t suppose she was much more than two-and-a-half years old when I first put her on the stilts. They were particularly short, was about four foot from the ground, so that she came to about as high as my arms. It was the funniest thing in the world to see her. She hadn’t got sufficient strength in her knees to keep her legs stiff, and she used to wabble about just like a fellow drunk, and lost the use of his limbs. The object of beginning so soon was to accustom it, and she was only on for a few minutes once or twice a-day. She liked this very much, in fact so much, that the other little ones used to cry like blazes because I wouldn’t let them have a turn at them. I used to make my girl do it, just like a bit of fun. She’d be laughing fit to crack her sides, and we’d be laughing to see her little legs bending about. I had a new dress made for her, with a spangled bodice and gauze skirt, and she always put that on when she was practising, and that used to induce her to the exercise. She was pleased as Punch when she had her fine clothes on. When she wasn’t good, I’d say to her, ‘Very well, miss, since you’re so naughty, you shan’t go out with us to perform; we’ll teach your little sister, and take her with us, and leave you at home.’ That used to settle her in a moment, for she didn’t like the idea of having the other one take her place.
“Some people, when they teach their children for any entertainment, torture the little things most dreadful. There is a great deal of barbarity practised in teaching children for the various lines. It’s very silly, because it only frightens the little things, and some children often will do much more by kindness than ill-usage. Now there are several children that I know of that have been severely injured whilst being trained for the Risley business. Why, bless your soul, a little thing coming down on it’s head, is done for the remainder of it’s life. I’ve seen them crying on the stage, publicly, from being sworn at and bullied, where they would have gone to it laughing, if they had only been coaxed and persuaded.
“Now my little things took to it almost naturally. It was bred and born in them, for my father was in the profession before me, and my wife’s parents were also performers. We had both my little girls on the stilts before they were three years old. It’s astonishing how soon the leg gets accustomed to the stilts, for in less than three months they can walk alone. Of course, for the first six weeks that they are put on we never leave go of their hands. The knees, which at first is weak and wabbly, gets strong, and when once that is used to the pad and stump (for the stilts are fastened on to just where the garter would come), then the child is all right. It does not enlarge the knee at all, and instead of crooking the leg, it acts in a similar way to what we see in a child born with the cricks, with irons on. I should say, that if any of my children have been born knock-kneed, or bow-legged, the stilts have been the means of making their legs straight. It does not fatigue their ankles at all, but the principal strain is on the hollow in the palm of the foot, where it fits into the tread of the stilt, for that’s the thing that bears the whole weight. If you keep a child on too long, it will complain of pain there; but mine were never on for more than twenty minutes at a time, and that’s not long enough to tire the foot. But one gets over this feeling.
“I’ve had my young ones on the stilts amusing themselves in my back-yard for a whole afternoon. They’ll have them on and off three or four times in a hour, for it don’t take a minute or two to put them on. They would put them on for play. I’ve often had them asking me to let them stop away from school, so as to have them on.
“My wife is very clever on the stilts. She does the routine of military exercise with them on. It’s the gun exercise. She takes one stilt off herself, and remains on the other, and then shoulders the stilt she has taken off, and shows the gun practice. She’s the only female stilt-dancer in England now. Those that were with her when she was a girl are all old women now. All of my family waltz and polka on stilts, and play tamborines whilst they dance. The little girls dance with their mother.
“It took longer to teach the children to do the tight-rope. They were five years old before I first began to teach them. The first thing I taught them to walk upon was on a pole passed through the rails at the back of two chairs. When you’re teaching a child, you have not got time to go driving stakes into the ground to fix a rope upon. My pole was a bit of one of my wife’s broken balance-poles. It was as thick as a broom handle, and not much longer. I had to lay hold of the little things’ hands at first. They had no balance-pole to hold, not for some months afterwards. My young ones liked it very much; I don’t know how other persons may. It was bred in them. They couldn’t stand even upright when first they tried it, but after three months they could just walk across it by themselves. I exercised them once every day, for I had other business to attend to, and I’d give them a lesson for just, perhaps, half an hour at dinner time, or of an evening a bit after I came home. My wife never would teach them herself. I taught my wife rope-dancing, and yet I could not do it; but I understood it by theory, though not by experience. I never chalked my young ones’ feet, but I put them on a little pair of canvas pumps, to get the feet properly formed to grasp the rope, and to bend round. My wife’s feet, when she is on the rope, bend round from continual use, so that they form a hollow in the palm of the foot, or the waist of the foot as some call it. My girls’ feet soon took the form. The foot is a little bit tender at first, not to the pole, because that is round and smooth, but the strands of the rope would, until the person has had some practice, blister the foot if kept too long on it. I never kept my young ones on the pole more than twenty minutes at a time, for it tired me more than them, and my arms used to ache with supporting them. Just when they got into the knack and habit of walking on the pole, then I shifted them to a rope, which I fixed up in my back-yard. The rope has to be a good cable size, about one-and-a-half inches in diameter. I always chalked the rope; chalk is of a very rough nature, and prevents slipping. The sole of the pump is always more or less hard and greasy. We don’t rough the soles of the pumps, for the rope itself will soon make them rough, no matter how bright they may have been. My rope was three feet six inches from the ground, which was a comfortable height for me to go alongside of the children. I didn’t give them the balance-pole till they were pretty perfect without it. It is a great help, is the pole. The one my wife takes on the rope with her is eighteen feet long. Some of the poles are weighted at both ends, but ours are not. My young ones were able to dance on the rope in a twelvemonth’s time. They wern’t a bit nervous when I highered the rope in my yard. I was underneath to catch them. They seemed to like it.
“They appeared in public on the tight-rope in less than a twelvemonth from their first lesson on the broom-stick on the backs of the chairs. My girl had done the stilts in public when she was only three years and six months old, so she was accustomed to an audience. It was in a gardens she made her first performance on the rope, and I was under her in case she fell. I always do that to this day.
“Whenever I go to fairs to fulfil engagements, I always take all my own apparatus with me. There is the rope some twenty yards long, and then there’s the pulley-blocks for tightening it, and the cross-poles for fixing it up, and the balance-poles. I’m obliged to have a cart to take them along. I always make engagements, and never go in shares, for I don’t like that game. I could have lots of jobs at that game if I liked. There’s no hold on the proprietor of the show. There’s a share taken for this, and a share for this, so that before the company come to touch any money, twenty shares are gone out of thirty, and only ten left for the performers. I have had a pound a-day for myself and family at a fair. At the last one I went to, a week ago, we took somewhere about 25s. a-day. When it isn’t too far from London, we generally come home at night, but otherwise we go to a tavern, and put up there.
“I only go to circuses when we are at fairs. I never had a booth of my own. The young ones and my wife walk about the parade to make a show of the entire company, but unless business is very bad, and a draw is wanted, my little ones don’t appear on the stilts. They have done so, of course, but I don’t like them to do so, unless as a favour.
“In the ring, their general performance is the rope one time, and then reverse it and do the stilts. My wife and the girls all have their turns at the rope, following each other in their performances. The band generally plays quadrilles, or a waltz, or anything; it don’t matter what it is, so long as it is the proper time. They dance and do the springs in the air, and they also perform with chairs, seating themselves on it whilst on the rope, and also standing up on the chair. They also have a pair of ladders, and mount them. Then again they dance in fetters. I am there underneath, in evening costume, looking after them. They generally wind up their tight-rope performance by flinging away the balance-pole, and dancing without it to quick measure.
“One of my little girls slipped off once, but I caught her directly as she came down, and she wasn’t in the least frightened, and went on again. I put her down, and she curtsied, and ran up again. Did she scream? Of course not. You can’t help having a slip off occasionally.
“When they do the stilts, the young ones only dance waltzes and polkas, and so on. They have to use their hands for doing the graceful attitudes. My wife, as I said before, does the gun exercise besides dancing, and it’s always very successful with the audience, and goes down tremendously. The performances of the three takes about twenty minutes, I think, for I never timed it exactly. I’ve been at some fairs when we have done our performances eighteen times a-day, and I’ve been at some where I’ve only done it four or six, for it always depends upon what business is being done. That’s the truth. When the booth is full, then the inside performance begins, and until it is, the parade work is done. There are generally persons engaged expressly to do the parade business.
“I never knew my girls catch cold at a fair, for they are generally held in hot weather, and the heat is rather more complained of than the cold. My young ones put on three or four different dresses during a fair—at least mine do. I don’t know what others do. Each dress is a different colour. There is a regular dressing-room for the ladies under the parade carriages, and their mother attends to them.
“Very often after their performances they get fruit and money thrown to them into the ring. I’ve known seven or eight shillings to be thrown to them in coppers and silver, but it’s seldom they get more than a shilling or so. I’ve known ladies and gentlemen wait for them when they went to take off their dresses after they have done, and give them five or six shillings.
“When we go to fairs, I always pack the young ones off to bed about nine, and never later than ten. They don’t seem tired, and would like to stop up all night, I should think. I don’t know how it is with other kids.
“I send my young ones to school every day when there is no business on, and they are getting on well with their schooling. When we go to a country engagement, then I send them to a school in the town if we stop any time.
“Ours is, I think, the only family doing the rope-dancing and stilt-vaulting. I don’t know of any others, nor yet of any other children at all who do it.
“Stilt-vaulting is dying out. You never see any children going about the streets as you did formerly. There never was so much money got as at that stilt-vaulting in the streets. My wife’s family, when she was young, thought nothing of going out of an afternoon, after dinner, and taking their three or four pounds. They used to be as tall up as the first-floor windows of some of the houses. It must be very nearly twenty years since I remember the last that appeared. It isn’t that the police would stop it, but there’s nobody to do it. It’s a very difficult thing to do, is walking about at that tremendous height. If you fall you’re done for. One of my little ones fell once—it was on some grass, I think—but she escaped without any hurt, for she was light, and gathered herself up in a heap somehow.
“There used to be a celebrated Jellini family, with a similar entertainment to what I give. They were at the theatres mostly, and at public gardens, and so on. They used to do ballets on stilts, and had great success. That must be forty years ago. There used to be the Chaffs family too, who went about the streets on stilts. They had music with them, and danced in the public thoroughfares. Now there is nothing of the kind going on, and it’s out of date.
“I have been abroad, in Holland, travelling with a circus company. I’ve also visited Belgium. The children and my wife were very much liked wherever they went. I was on an engagement then, and we had 11l. a-week, and I was with them seven weeks. They paid our travelling expenses there, and we paid them home.”
Street reciters are somewhat scarce now-a-days, and I was a long time before meeting with one; for though I could always trace them through their wanderings about the streets, and learn where they had been seen the night before, still I could never find one myself. I believe there are not more than ten lads in London,—for they seem to be all lads,—who are earning a livelihood by street-reciting.
At length I heard that some street actors, as they call themselves, lived in a court in the City. There were two of them—one a lad, who was dressed in a man’s ragged coat and burst boots, and tucked-up trowsers, and seemingly in a state of great want; and the other decently enough attired in a black paletot with a flash white-and-red handkerchief, or “fogle,” as the costermongers call it, jauntily arranged so as to bulge over the closely-buttoned collar of his coat. There was a priggish look about the latter lad, while his manner was “cute,” and smacked of Petticoat-lane; and though the other one seemed to slink back, he pushed himself saucily forward, and at once informed me that he belonged “to the profession” of street declaimer. “I and this other boy goes out together,” he said, as he took a short pipe from his mouth; and in proof of his assertion, he volunteered that they should on the spot give me a specimen of their histrionic powers.
I preferred listening to the modest boy. He was an extremely good-looking lad, and spoke in a soft voice, almost like a girl’s. He had a bright, cheerful face, and a skin so transparent and healthy, and altogether appeared so different from the generality of street lads, that I felt convinced that he had not long led a wandering life, and that there was some mystery connected with his present pursuits. He blushed when spoken to, and his answers were nervously civil.
When I had the better-natured boy alone with me, I found that he had been well educated; and his statement will show that he was born of respectable parents, and the reason why he took to his present course of life. At first he seemed to be nervous, and little inclined to talk; but as we became better acquainted, he chatted on even faster than my pen could follow. He had picked up several of the set phrases of theatrical parlance, such as, “But my dream has vanished in air;” or, “I felt that a blight was on my happiness;” and delivered his words in a romantic tone, as though he fancied he was acting on a stage. He volunteered to show me his declamatory powers, and selected “Othello’s Apology.” He went to the back of the room, and after throwing his arms about him for a few seconds, and looking at the ceiling as if to inspire himself, he started off.
Whilst he had been chatting to us his voice was—as I said before—like a girl’s; but no sooner did he deliver his, “Most potent, grave, and reverend Signiors,” than I was surprised to hear him assume a deep stomachic voice—a style evidently founded upon the melo-dramatic models at minor theatres. His good-looking face, however, became flushed and excited during the delivery of the speech, his eyes rolled about, and he passed his hands through his hair, combing it with his fingers till it fell wildly about his neck like a mane.
When he had finished the speech he again relapsed into his quiet ways, and resuming his former tone of voice, seemed to think that an apology was requisite for the wildness of his acting, for he said, “When I act Shakspeare I cannot restrain myself,—it seems to master my very soul.”
He had some little talent as an actor, but was possessed of more memory than knowledge of the use of words. Like other performers, he endeavoured to make his “points” by dropping his voice to almost a whisper when he came to the passage, “I’ faith ’twas strange, ’twas passing strange.”
In answer to my questions he gave me the following statement:—
“I am a street reciter, that is, I go about the streets and play Shakspeare’s tragedies, and selections from poets. The boys in the streets call me Shakspeare. The first time they called me so I smiled at them, and was honoured by the name, though it’s only passing! it’s only fleet!
“I was born in Dublin, and my father was in the army, and my mother was a lady’s nurse and midwife, and used to go out on urgent business, but only to ladies of the higher classes. My mother died in Dublin, and my father left the army and became a turnkey in Dublin prison. Father left Dublin when I was about ten years of age, and went to Manchester. Then I went into an office—a herring-store, which had agents at Yarmouth and other fishing-ports; and there I had to do writing. Summer-time was our busiest time, for we used to have to sit up at night waiting for the trains to come in with the fish. I used to get 3d. an hour for every hour we worked over, and 6d. in the morning for coffee, and 8s. 6d. standing wages, whether I worked or played. I know all about herrings and herring-packing, for I was two years there, and the master was like a father to me, and would give me money many times, Christmas-boxes, and new-years’ gifts, and such-like. I might have been there now, and foreman by this time, in the Isle of Man, where we had a house, only I was too foolish—going to theatres and such-like.
“You see, I used, before I went out as clerk, to go to a school in Manchester, where the master taught recitation. We used to speak pieces from Uwin’s ‘Elocution,’ and we had to get a piece off to elocution, and attitude, and position; indeed, elocution may be said to be position and attitude. We used to do ‘The Downfall of Poland,’ and ‘Lord Ullen’s Daughter,’ and ‘My name is Norval,’ and several others—‘Rolla,’ and all them. Then we used to speak them one at a time, and occasionally we would take different parts, such as the ‘Quarrel of Brutus,’ and ‘Cassius,’ and ‘Rolla,’ and the ‘American Patriot,’ and such-like. I will not boast of myself, but I was one of the best in the class, though since I have gone out in the streets it has spoiled my voice and my inclinations, for the people likes shouting. I have had as many as 500 persons round me in the Walworth-road at one time, and we got 4s. between us; and then we lost several halfpence, for it was night, and we could not see the money that was thrown into the ring. We did the ‘Gipsy’s Revenge,’ and ‘Othello’s Apology.’
“Whilst I was at the herring-stores I used to be very fond of the theatre, and I’d go there every night if I could, and I did nearly manage to be there every evening. I’d save up my money, and if I’d none I’d go to my master and ask him to let me have a few halfpence; and I’ve even wanted to go to the play so much that, when I couldn’t get any money, I’d sell my clothes to go. Master used to caution me, and say that the theatre would ruin me, and I’m sure it has. When my master would tell me to stop and do the books, I’d only just run them over at night and cast them up as quickly as I could, and then I’d run out and go to the twopenny theatre on the Victoria-bridge, Manchester. Sometimes I used to perform there for Mr. Row, who was the proprietor. It was what is called a travelling ‘slang,’ a booth erected temporarily. I did William Tell’s son, and I’ve also done the ‘Bloody Child’ in Macbeth, and go on with the witches. It was a very little stage, but with very nice scenery, and shift-scenes and all, the same as any other theatre. On a Saturday night he used to have as many as six houses; start off at three o’clock, after the factory hands had been paid off. I never had any money for acting, for though he offered me half-a-sovereign a-week to come and take a part, yet I wouldn’t accept of it, for I only did it for my own amusement like. They used to call me King Dick.
“My master knew I went to the theatre to act, for he sent one of the boys to follow me, and he went in front and saw me acting in Macbeth, and he went and told master, because, just as the second act was over, he came right behind the scenes and ordered me out, and told me I’d have to get another situation if I went there any more. He took me home and finished the books, and the next morning I told him I’d leave, for I felt as if it was my sole ambition to get on to the stage, or even put my foot on it; I was so enamoured of it. And it is the same now, for I’d do anything to get engaged—it’s as if a spell was on me. Just before I left he besought me to remain with him, and said that I was a useful hand to him, and a good boy when I liked, and that he wanted to make a gentleman of me. He was so fond of me that he often gave me money himself to go to a theatre; but he said too much of it was bad.
“After I left him I went with another boy to go to sea. I forgot all about the theatre, for it agitated my feelings when I left him, and I wished I had been back, for I’d been with him eighteen months, and he’d been like a father to me; but I was too ashamed to see him again. This boy and me started for Scarborough, and he had no money, and I had 5s., that was all between us; but I had a black suit of clothes cost 2l. 10s., which my master had made me a present of, for excelling the foreman in making up the books—for the foreman was 208 hands of herrings (five herrings make a hand) short in one week; and then I took the books the next week, and I was only four herrings short, and master was so pleased that he bestowed upon me a present of a new suit of clothes.
“I parted with my companion for this reason. One day, after we had been walking, we were so hungry we could eat anything, and I had been accustomed to never being hungry, so that I was very much exhausted from fatigue, for we had walked thirty miles that day, only eating one piece of bread, which I got at a public-house where I gave a recitation. We came to a farm-house at a place called Bishop Wilton, in Yorkshire, and he went inside the door to beg for something to eat. There was a young lady came out and talked to him and gave him some bread, and then she saw me and had compassion on me, because I looked respectable and was so miserable. We told her we were cousins, and had left our fathers and mothers (for we didn’t like to say we had left our masters), and she said, ‘Poor boys! your parents will be fretting after you; I’d go back, if I was you.’ She gave him a large bit of bread, and then she gave me a big bit of cold plum-pudding. My companion wanted half my pudding besides his own bread, and I preferred to give him part of the pudding and not have any bread; but he wouldn’t, and struck out at me. I returned it, and then we fought, and an old woman came out with a stick and beat us both, and said we were incorrigible young beggars, and couldn’t be very hungry or we shouldn’t fight that way. Then I parted from my companion, and he took the direct road to Scarborough, and I went to York. I saw him afterwards when I returned to Manchester. His father left him 200l., and he’s doing very well in a good situation in a commercial office.
“I got bound for six years to sea to a shipowner at Scarborough, but the mate behaved very bad to me and used me brutally. I couldn’t use the ropes as well as he thought I might, although I learned the compass and all the ropes very soon. The captain was a very good man, but I daren’t tell him for fear of the mate. He used to beat me with the rope’s end—sometimes the lead-rope—that was his usual weapon, and he used to leave marks on me. I took the part of Hamlet, and, instead of complaining, I thought of that part where he says,