SOME ACCOUNT OF AN AMERICAN SHOWMAN, WITH A LITTLE INSIGHT INTO THE SHOW
BUSINESS.
Right in the heart of London--if London may be said to have any
heart--is a tavern kept by an American, which is the headquarters of
American "professionals," as showmen delight to call themselves. You can
never go there without meeting managers, nigger minstrels,
song-and-dance-men, unappreciated actors, and all sorts of people who
prefer living from hand to mouth and wearing no shirts, in this way,
than to making a fortune in any regular business. I go there frequently
from sheer loneliness, and to hear the kindly American language spoken;
and, besides, a man alone is generally in bad company, for the heart of
man is deceitful and desperately wicked. Any company that is fair to
middling is better than none at all. Even a hostler can tell you
something you don't know. You may excel him in the philosophy of
finance, but when it comes to horses you are nowhere.
I met one circus manager who is over here, as he expressed it, to
"secure talent," and he proved a delight. He was short and very thick,
and wore a sack coat, of rough material, and a little mastiff followed
him about constantly. His hat and necktie were something too utterly
gorgeous for description, his face was of a peculiarly puffy purple, and
his nose blazed like a comet. And he would sit and talk of his business
by the hour, keeping before him all the time a glass of British brandy
and water, which he pronounced "goodish." You could be sure he was a
showman as far as you could see him. My first interview with him was
something like this:--
"I shall have the biggest list of genooine attractions that ever was
taken across the Atlantic, and if I don't astonish the showmen of our
great country, as well as the people, I'm a sinner. I have got a baby
elephant, and a genooine Babulus, capchered by Stanley in the interior
of Africa, at a great loss of life, and I am after a performer sich as
the world never seen. She does an act on the trapeze that is so risky,
that sooner or later she _must_ be killed. There ain't any doubt about
it. I have seen her. She runs up a rope like a squirrel, and jumps from
a horizontal bar, twenty feet, catching hold of her pardner's hands, and
then plunges down from his body head-fust, at the frightful altitood of
seventy feet, catchin' a rope twenty feet from the ground. If the lights
are ever wrong by a half inch, or if she ever miscalculates a hair's
breadth, she is a goner, sure."
[Illustration: IF SHE EVER MISCALCULATES BY A HAIR'S BREADTH, SHE'S A
GONER, SURE.]
And the enthusiastic old gentleman rubbed his hands in glee, as though
the death of a performer was a consummation most devoutly to be wished.
[Sidenote: THE TRAPEZE ARTIST.]
"Do people enjoy such perilous feats?"
"Enjoy em! Enjoy em! Why, bless your innocent soul, a feat ain't
nothin'--won't dror a cent onless it's morally certain that the
performer will break his neck. This woman I'm after draws crowds every
night, because she _must_ kill herself. The trick is so dangerous that
men make bets every night she will miss her lucky, and be carried out a
corpse. I'm a goin' to have that woman, no matter what the salary is.
She does this trapeze act, and then goes on in the first part of the
minstrel entertainment after the big show. Oh, she's got talent into
her."
"But if the performance is so hazardous, and she should be killed, would
it not entail a heavy loss upon you?"
"Killed! Loss! Where was you born? My child, there never was a feat so
dangerous that there ain't a thousand waitin' to attempt it, and they'll
do it. When Mamselle Zhoubert gits killed, as she will, I'll hev to hold
a lev-vee to decide atwixt the dozen who will want to take her place.
I'll select one of 'em, give her a French name--yoo can't get on in the
perfesh with a English name--and she'll go on and do it, and do it jist
as well. And then wat an advertisement it is! This will be about the
size of it:--
"The management begs to state that since the untimely death of
Mademoiselle Zhoubert, at Cincinnati, it was doubtful if another
lady competent to fill her place could be found. The feat was so
difficult, so dangerous, and required such arduous training and
such wonderful nerve, that it was feared that this leading
attraction of the World's Aggregation would have to be omitted.
There was only one other such artiste in the world--Mademoiselle
Blanche, but she was engaged at the Cirque Imperial, Paris. The
management knows no such word as fail, and a commissioner was
dispatched at once to Paris, with unlimited powers to treat for
this stellar attraction, this acme of talent. At an expense which
would bankrupt any other establishment, conducted by narrow-minded
managers who advertise more and perform less, she was secured and
is now with us. Mademoiselle Blanche not only performs the original
feat of the sincerely mourned Zhoubert, but adds to it one so much
more dangerous as to make hers seem insignificant and commonplace.
Mademoiselle Blanche will appear at each and every performance, all
reports to the contrary notwithstanding."
"That'll fetch 'em."
"Dangerous feats! why, I run a whole season on a lion that had once
eaten a keeper. The people come in crowds, expecting every day to see
him make a breakfast of his trainer."
"Was he actually dangerous?"
[Illustration: THE DEATH OF THE TRAINER.]
[Sidenote: THE TRAINER'S WIDOW.]
"Dangerous! He et another trainer, and then I lost him. His widder was
actilly in love with her husband, and she swore the animal shood be
killed, and the people sided with her, and as the broot was gettin' old,
and the killin' made a sensation, I did it. But I made all there was out
of it. I insisted that the husband should have a gorgeous funeral. The
woman kicked at the idea of a funeral, for she sed there was nothing to
berry, as the lion had eaten her husband. But ain't the dear departed
inside the lion? If we berry the lion, don't we berry the dear deceast?
Cert. And we hed it, and it was gorgeous. We hed a percession, with all
our wagons in it--the regelar street parade--only all the riders hed
black scarfs on 'em, and the wagons and hosses and elephants and sich
was draped in black (mourning goods is cheap,), and the band played a
dead
[Illustration: THE GORGEOUS FUNERAL PROCESSION.]
march. The widder was in an open carriage, in full mournin' with a white
handkerchief, with a black border, to her eyes lookin' on his minatoor.
There wasn't no minatoor, but she held a case jist the same. That nite
the canvass coodent hold the people, and we run on that two weeks to
splendid biz. In two weeks, the woman got over her grief and went into
the lion trainin' line herself, ez 'Senorita Aguardiente, the Lion
Queen.' I give her some old lions to practis on, and in less than a
month she could do jest as well as the old man. She was a good woman,
too. She rid in the grand entree, and rid in the 'Halt in the Desert,'
did the bar'l act, rid a good pad act, and is now practisin' bare-back.
She juggles tollable, and does a society sketch song and dance in a
side-show. When I git talent I pay it and keep it. My treasurer changes
the names of my people every season, so as to have always fresh
attractions. Oh, I know my biz. But that wuzn't all I made out uv that
afflictin' event. I went and hed a moniment made and sot up over his
grave. This is the vig., inscription and all:
[Illustration: HERE LIES The Body of the Famous Ferocious Lion, EMPEROR,
which contains the body of SENOR SERONIMO CASTILLO The Celebrated "Lion
King," for many years connected with BLOSS'S Stupendous and
Unapproachable International Aggregation, The Best Circus and Most
Wonderful Collection of Wild Beasts and Natural Curiosities in the
World! SENOR CASTILLO was devoured by the ferocious animal while
exhibiting him under the spacious tents of the _International
Aggregation_, in St. Louis, August 10, 1871. He was a worthy man, a
talented performer, and died cheerfully in the discharge of his duty.
His place in the Great International Aggregation is more than filled by
SENOR TOMASO CREVADO, of the Royal Menagerie, Madrid, who daily enters
the den of a still more ferocious Lion than Emperor, at the RISK OF HIS
LIFE!]
And on the back uv the monument, I had this:--
"His sorrowing widow still does her unapproachable act of
Equitation and Prestidigitation, in the Great International
Aggregation, with which her devoured husband was so long connected,
and may be seen at each and every exhibition.
"While mourning the loss of our friend, the Great Aggregation
travels as usual, and exhibits without regard to weather, twice
each day. Lion Kings may die, but the Great International
Aggregation is immortal."
"The widder insisted on hevin a Scriptural quotashen on the moniment,
and it took me a good while lookin up suthin approprit. I know more
about circus than I do about Bible, but when I set out to do a thing I
do it. Ez the two hed lived together and died together, ez the lion et
him for cert, it struck me that this wuz about the racket, and I put it
on the base:--
They were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in death they were not
divided.--2d Sam. 1:23.
"I had the monument did in galvanized iron, and it will stand there for
forty years, and every visitor to that cemetery will know suthin about
the Great International. I wrote it modest, for I didn't want it to look
too much like an advertisement, though, of course, I wanted to get all I
could out of the afflictin event."
Ordering another brandy cold, the pleasant old gentleman murmured more
reminiscences. He had always had a penchant for wild Indian troupes,
and, since the Zulu war, for Zulus, and he flowed on about them:--
"Foggarty," said he, "was the best Zulu I ever had, and I have had a
hundred of 'em. He laid over the lot. He entered into the spirit of the
thing, and did the bizniss conscientiously. When he came outside with a
iron girdle about him, and a pizen spear, he lept in dead earnest, he
did. He made it mighty lively for the keeper to hold him, and he howled
so like a savage that he skeered the wimin and gals to a degree that
they couldn't help goin' in to see him. Foggarty was a great man, and
hed talent. He was the best Modoc Chief I ever had. O'Finnegan cood lay
over him on the green corn dance, and possibly drest the best, but
Foggarty's war-whoop was suthin' sublime. We hed him one season as
Scar-Faced Charley, and the next as Shack-Nasty Jim, and he did himself
proud in
[Illustration: THE SIDE-SHOW ZULU.]
[Sidenote: FOGGARTY'S MISFORTUNE.]
both. And then, there wan't no dam nonsense about him. He wood peel out
of his Injun clothes, and go and clean the lamps, and help pack, or do
anything. Before the doors opened, he'd do canvasman, and howl at the
door, and at the door he'd play the bass drum or grind the organ with
cheerfulness. In the street parade of the big show, he was, for five
years, our Washington, The Father of his Country, standing on a
revolvin' pedestal. Then, jist as soon as he got his dinner, he'd help
get up the canvas, and then skin into the Zulu rig, and after that, he'd
peddle lemonade, or do anything to make himself yooseful. But a woman
spiled him. Wimin spile a great many good men. We hed a woman, Biddy
McCarty, wich was doin' the Circassian lady, with hair to her heels, you
know 'em, and sometimes the bearded lady. Likewise, she was a Chinese
knife thrower, and Foggarty yoosed to do the Chinaman she throwed her
knives at. Well, Foggarty, seein' that she was an Irish gal, and he an
Irishman, coodent no more help fallin' in love with her than fire kin
help burnin' tow. He got it into his head that ef he could marry a gal
with so much talent, he might, some day, have a side-show of his own.
And then, as time rolled on, and they hed kids, he cood train 'em up to
the family business, and do things cheap. He wanted to be a Bearded
family, or a Zulu family, or a Jap family, or suthin, and so he married
Biddy, and they went double. Biddy hed a will of her own, and besides
she would git drunk. Rum spiles more talent in the perfesh than anything
else. She had a trick of beating Foggarty, and she led him the devil's
own life. It was at Leroy, New York. She had bin on as the Bearded
Woman, and as the Circassian Lady, and hed sold all the photographs she
cood, and hed changed to go on as the Chinese Knife Thrower, from Hang
Fo. Foggarty hed changed to a Chinaman--Lu Fu, the Wizard--when I
diskivered that Biddy hed bin drinkin'. I warned Foggarty to look out,
for she was ugly, but he laughed, and said she wouldn't hurt him, and
went on. You hev seen that act. Foggarty stands agin a board with his
arms spread out, and the China woman throws knives all around him. She
puts 'em between his fingers, and clost to his neck and between his
legs. Biddy could throw a knife within a hair of where she wanted it to
go. She hed talent, as I sed. But that day she was ugly. She and
Foggarty hed hed it hot, and when she came in twistin' her queue, I
knowd suthin was goin' to happen. She throwd six or eight knives all
right, and then one went, whiz! It took off Foggarty's second finger on
his right hand, as clean as a butcher's cleaver could do it. And Biddy
fired the rest of the knives at him and rushed out, yellin', 'Be gorra,
Mike Foggarty, and ye'll bate me over the head with a tent pin agin,
will ye? Ye'll hev one finger less to do it wid, onyhow.' Most men would
hev abandoned the perfesh with that finger off, but while it was bein'
dressed Mike whispered to me, 'Put it on the bills that the Zulu Chief
lost the finger by a English saber, at the battle of--where was the
battle?' I hev Foggarty yet, but Biddy broke his heart and he aint as
good as he was. She run away with the cannibal from the Friendly
Islands, who cood do the tight-rope and fire-eatin', and they are doin'
hall shows and the variety business together. He taught her to do a song
and dance, as well as fire-eatin', and she is now 'M'lle Lulu Delmayne.'
They do society sketches, too. Foggarty is jest as willin' as ever, but
the blow was too much for him. He goes with us next season as a Zulu,
and also lecters the sacred Burmese cattle, and has a part in the wild
perarie scene, and fires the calliope. He can't do Washington any more,
for he has rheumatiz, and can't stand an hour with his right hand in a
military coat. He's practisin' to be a lion tamer, but I don't bleeve
it'll do. He may git to play the snake, but that is about as high as
he'll ever git in the perfesh."
[Illustration: THE LOST FINGER.]
The next day the old gentleman departed for the continent.