Concerning these, I received the subjoined narrative from a man of
considerable experience in the “profession:”--
“Being a cripple, I am obliged to exhibit a small peep-show. I lost
the use of this arm ever since I was three months old. My mother died
when I was ten years old, and after that my father took up with an
Irishwoman, and turned me and my youngest sister (she was two years
younger than me) out into the streets. My father had originally been a
dyer, but was working at the fiddle-string business then. My youngest
sister got employment at my father’s trade, but I couldn’t get no
work, because of my crippled arms. I walked about till I fell down in
the streets for want. At last a man, who had a sweetmeat-shop, took
pity on me. His wife made the sweetmeats, and minded the shop while he
went out a-juggling in the streets, in the Ramo Samee line. He told
me as how, if I would go round the country with him, and sell prints
while he was a-juggling in the public-houses, he’d find me in wittles
and pay my lodging. I joined him, and stopped with him two or three
year. After that, I went to work for a werry large waste-paper dealer.
He used to buy up all the old back numbers of the cheap periodicals
and penny publications, and send me out with them to sell at a farden
a-piece. He used to give me fourpence out of every shilling, and I done
very well with that, till the periodicals came so low, and so many
on ’em, that they wouldn’t sell at all. Sometimes I could make 15_s._
on a Saturday night and a Sunday morning, a-selling the odd numbers
of periodicals, such as ‘Tales of the Wars,’ ‘Lives of the Pirates,’
‘Lives of the Highwaymen,’ &c. I’ve often sold as many as 2000 numbers
on a Saturday night in the New Cut, and the most of them was works
about thieves, and highwaymen, and pirates. Besides me there was three
others at the same business. Altogether, I dare say, my master alone
used to get rid of 10,000 copies of such works on a Saturday night and
Sunday morning. Our principal customers was young men. My master made
a good bit of money at it. He had been about 18 years in the business,
and had begun with 2_s._ 6_d._ I was with him 15 year on and off, and
at the best time I used to earn my 30_s._ a-week full at that time. But
then I was foolish, and didn’t take care of my money. When I was at
the ‘odd-number business,’ I bought a peep-show. I gave 2_l._ 10_s._
for it. I had it second-hand. I was persuaded to buy it. A person as
has got only one hand, you see, isn’t like other folks, and the people
said it would always bring me a meal of victuals, and keep me from
starving. The peep-shows was a-doing very well then (that’s about five
or six years back), when the theaytres was all a shilling to go into
them whole price, but now there’s many at 3_d._ and 2_d._, and a good
lot at a penny. Before the theaytres lowered, a peep-showman could make
3_s._ or 4_s._ a-day, at the least, in fine weather, and on a Saturday
night about double that money. At a fair he could take his 15_s._ to
1_l._ a-day. Then there was about nine or ten peep-shows in London.
These were all back-shows. There are two kinds of peep-shows, which
we call ‘back-shows’ and ‘caravan-shows.’ The caravan-shows are much
larger than the others, and are drawn by a horse or a donkey. They
have a green-baize curtain at the back, which shuts out them as don’t
pay. The showmen usually lives in these caravans with their families.
Often there will be a man, his wife, and three or four children, living
in one of these shows. These caravans mostly go into the country, and
very seldom are seen in town. They exhibit principally at fairs and
feasts, or wakes, in country villages. They generally go out of London
between March and April, because some fairs begin at that time, but
many wait for the fairs at May. Then they work their way right round,
from village to town. They tell one another what part they’re a-going
to, and they never interfere with one another’s rounds. If a new hand
comes into the business, they’re werry civil, and tells him what places
to work. The carawans comes to London about October, after the fairs is
over. The scenes of them carawan shows is mostly upon recent battles
and murders. Anything in that way, of late occurrence, suits them.
Theatrical plays ain’t no good for country towns, ’cause they don’t
understand such things there. People is werry fond of the battles in
the country, but a murder wot is well known is worth more than all the
fights. There was more took with Rush’s murder than there has been even
by the Battle of Waterloo itself. Some of the carawan-shows does werry
well. Their average taking is 30_s._ a-week for the summer months.
At some fairs they’ll take 5_l._ in the three days. They have been
about town as long as we can recollect. I should say there is full 50
of these carawan-shows throughout the country. Some never comes into
London at all. There is about a dozen that comes to London regular
every winter. The business in general goes from family to family. The
cost of a carawan-show, second-hand, is 40_l._; that’s without the
glasses, and them runs from 10_s._ to 1_l._ a-piece, because they’re
large. Why, I’ve knowed the front of a peep-show, with the glasses,
cost 60_l._; the front was mahogany, and had 36 glasses, with gilt
carved mouldings round each on ’em. The scenes will cost about 6_l._
if done by the best artist, and 3_l._ if done by a common hand. The
back-shows are peep-shows that stand upon trussels, and are so small
as to admit of being carried on the back. The scenery is about 18
inches to 2 foot in length, and about 15 inches high. They have been
introduced about fifteen or sixteen years. The man as first brought ’em
up was named Billy T----; he was lame of one leg, and used to exhibit
little automaton figures in the New Cut. On their first coming out, the
oldest back-showman as I know on told me they could take 15_s._ a-day.
But now we can’t do more than 7_s._ a-week, run Saturday and all the
other days together,--and that’s through the theayters being so low.
It’s a regular starving life now. We has to put up with the hinsults of
people so. The back-shows generally exhibits plays of different kinds
wot’s been performed at the theayters lately. I’ve got many different
plays to my show. I only exhibit one at a time. There’s ‘Halonzer the
Brave and the Fair Himogen;’ ‘The Dog of Montargis and the Forest of
Bondy;’ ‘Hyder Halley, or the Lions of Mysore;’ ‘The Forty Thieves’
(that never done no good to me); ‘The Devil and Dr. Faustus;’ and
at Christmas time we exhibit pantomimes. I has some other scenes as
well. I’ve ‘Napoleon’s Return from Helba,’ ‘Napoleon at Waterloo,’
‘The Death of Lord Nelson,’ and also ‘The Queen embarking to start for
Scotland, from the Dockyard at Voolich.’ We takes more from children
than grown people in London, and more from grown people than children
in the country. You see, grown people has such remarks made upon them
when they’re a-peeping through in London, as to make it bad for us
here. Lately I have been hardly able to get a living, you may say.
Some days I’ve taken 6_d._, others 8_d._, and sometimes 1_s._--that’s
what I call a good day for any of the week-days. On a Saturday it
runs from 2_s._ to 2_s._ 6_d._ Of the week-days, Monday or Tuesday
is the best. If there’s a fair on near London, such as Greenwich,
we can go and take 3_s._, and 4_s._, or 5_s._ a-day, so long as it
lasts. But after that, we comes back to the old business, and that’s
bad enough; for, after you’ve paid 1_s._ 6_d._ a-week rent, and 6_d._
a-week stand for your peep-show, and come to buy a bit of coal, why
all one can get is a bit of bread and a cup of tea to live upon. As
for meat, we don’t see it from one month’s end to the other. My old
woman, when she is at work, only gets five fardens a-pair for making
a pair of drawers to send out for the convicts, and three half-pence
for a shirt; and out of that she has to find her own thread. There are
from six to eight scenes in each of the plays that I shows; and if the
scenes are a bit short, why I puts in a couple of battle-scenes; or I
makes up a pannerammer for ’em. The children _will_ have so much for
their money now. I charge a halfpenny for a hactive performance. There
is characters and all--and I explains what they are supposed to be
a-talking about. There’s about six back-shows in London. I don’t think
there’s more. It don’t pay now to get up a new play. We works the old
ones over and over again, and sometimes we buys a fresh one of another
showman, if we can rise the money--the price is 2_s._ and 2_s._ 6_d._
I’ve been obligated to get rid on about twelve of my plays, to get a
bit of victuals at home. Formerly we used to give a hartist 1_s._ to
go in the pit and sketch off the scenes and figures of any new play
that was a-doing well, and we thought ’ud take, and arter that we used
to give him from 1_s._ 6_d._ to 2_s._ for drawing and painting each
scene, and 1_d._ and 1-1/2_d._ each for the figures, according to the
size. Each play costs us from 15_s._ to 1_l._ for the inside scenes
and figures, and the outside painting as well. The outside painting in
general consists of the most attractive part of the performance. The
New-Cut is no good at all now on a Saturday night; that’s through the
cheap penny hexhibitions there. Tottenham-court-road ain’t much account
either. The street-markets is the best of a Saturday night. I’m often
obliged to take bottles instead of money, and they don’t fetch more
than threepence a dozen. Sometimes I take four dozen of bottles in a
day. I lets ’em see a play for a bottle, and often two wants to see
for one large bottle. The children is dreadful for cheapening things
down. In the summer I goes out of London for a month at a stretch.
In the country I works my battle-pieces. They’re most pleased there
with my Lord Nelson’s death at the battle of Trafalgar. ‘That there
is,’ I tell ’em, ‘a fine painting, representing Lord Nelson at the
battle of Trafalgar.’ In the centre is Lord Nelson in his last dying
moments, supported by Capt. Hardy and the chaplain. On the left is
the hexplosion of one of the enemy’s ships by fire. That represents a
fine painting, representing the death of Lord Nelson at the battle of
Trafalgar, wot was fought on the 12th of October, 1805. I’ve got five
glasses, they cost about 5_s._ a-piece when new, and is about 3-1/2
inches across, with a 3-foot focus.”