“I have been in the profession for about thirteen years, and I am
thirty-two next birthday. Excepting four years that I was at sea, I’ve
been solely by the profession. I’m what is termed a strong man, and
perform feats of strength and posturing. What is meant by posturing is
the distortion of the limbs, such as doing the splits, and putting your
leg over your head and pulling it down your back, a skipping over your
leg, and such-like business. Tumbling is different from posturing, and
means throwing summersets and walking on your hands; and acrobating
means the two together, with mounting three stories high, and balancing
each other. These are the definitions I make.
“I was nineteen before I did anything of any note at all, and got
what I call a living salary. Long before that I had been trying the
business, going in and out of these free concerts, and trying my hand
at it, fancying I was very clever, but disgusting the audience, for
they are mostly duffers at these free concerts; which is clearly the
case, for they only do it for a pint every now and then, and depend
upon passing the hat round after their performance. I never got much at
collections, so I must have been a duffer.
“My father is an architect and builder, and his income now is never
less than a thousand a-year. Like a fool, I wouldn’t go into his
office: I wish I had. I preferred going to sea. I was always hankering
after first one vessel and then another. I used to be fond of going
down to the docks, and such-like, and looking at the vessels. I’d
talk with the sailors about foreign countries, and such-like, and my
ambition was to be a sailor. I was the scabby sheep of the family, and
I’ve been punished for it. I never went into the governor’s office; but
when I was about fourteen I was put to a stonemason, for I thought I
should like to be a carver, or something of that sort. I was two years
there, and I should have done very well if I had stayed, for I earned a
guinea a-week when I left.
“Before I went to the stonemason I was at the Victoria, taking
checks--when there was any. I had an uncle there who kept the saloon
there. I was always very partial to going to the theatre, for all our
people are chapel people, and that I never liked. My father’s parlour
is always smothered with ministers, and mine with tumblers, and that’s
the difference. I used to go and see my uncle at the Vic., so as to get
to the theatre for nothing. I wasn’t paid for taking the checks, but I
knew the check-taker, and he’d ask me to help him, and I was too glad
to get inside a theatre to refuse the job. They were doing dreadful
business. It was under Levi, and before Glossop’s time. It was before
the glass curtain come out. The glass curtain was a splendid thing. It
went straight up, never wound. You can even now see where the roof was
highered to receive it. Levi has got the Garrick now. They say he’s not
doing much.
“The first thing I did was at a little beer-shop, corner of
Southwark-bridge-road and Union-street. I had seen Herbert do the
Grecian statues at the Vic., in ‘Hercules, King of Clubs,’ and it
struck me I could do ’em. So I knew this beer-shop, and I bought
half-a-crown’s worth of tickets to be allowed to do these statues.
It was on a boxing-night, I remember. I did them, but they were
dreadful bad. The people did certainly applaud, but what for, I don’t
know, for I kept shaking and wabbling so, that my marble statue was
rather ricketty; and there was a strong man in the room, who had been
performing them, and he came up to me and said that I was a complete
duffer, and that I knew nothing about it at all. So I replied, that
he knew nothing about his feats of strength, and that I’d go and beat
him. So I set to work at it; for I was determined to lick him. I got
five quarter-of-hundred weights, and used to practice throwing them at
a friend’s back-yard in the Waterloo-road. I used to make myself all
over mud at it, besides having a knock of the head sometimes. At last
I got perfect chucking the quarter hundred, and then I tied a fourteen
pound weight on to them, and at last I got up half-hundreds. I learnt
to hold up one of them at arm’s length, and even then I was obliged to
push it up with the other hand. I also threw them over my head, as well
as catching them by the ring.
“I went to this beer-shop as soon as I could do, and came out. I wasn’t
so good as he was at lifting, but that was all he could do; and I did
posturing with the weights as well, and that licked him. He was awfully
jealous, and I had been revenged. I had learnt to do a split, holding
a half-hundred in my teeth, and rising with it, without touching the
ground with my hands. Now I can lift five, for I’ve had more practice.
I had tremendous success at this beer-shop.
“It hurt me awfully when I learnt to do the split with the weight on
my teeth. It strained me all to pieces. I couldn’t put my heels to the
ground not nicely, for it physicked my thighs dreadful. When I was hot
I didn’t feel it; but as I cooled, I was cramped all to bits. It took
me nine months before I could do it without feeling any pain.
“Another thing I learnt to do at this beer-shop was, to break the
stone on the chest. This man used to do it as well, only in a very
slight way--with thin bits and a cobbler’s hammer. Now mine is regular
flagstones. I’ve seen as many as twenty women faint seeing me do it.
At this beer-shop, when I first did it, the stone weighed about three
quarters of a hundred, and was an inch thick. I laid down on the
ground, and the stone was put on my chest, and a man with a sledge
hammer, twenty-eight pounds weight, struck it and smashed it. The way
it is done is this. You rest on your heels and hands and throw your
chest up. There you are, like a stool, with the weight on you. When you
see the blow coming, you have to give, or it would knock you all to
bits.
“When I was learning to do this, I practised for nine months. I got
a friend of mine to hit the stone. One day I cut my chest open doing
it. I wasn’t paying attention to the stone, and never noticed that it
was hollow; so then when the blow came down, the sharp edges of the
stone, from my having nothing but a fleshing suit on, cut right into
the flesh, and made two deep incisions. I had to leave it off for about
a month. Strange to say, this stone-breaking never hurt my chest or
my breathing; I rather think it has done me good, for I’m strong and
hearty, and never have illness of any sort.
“The first time I done it I was dreadful frightened. I knew if I didn’t
stop still I should have my brains knocked out, pretty well. When I saw
the blow coming I trembled a good bit, but I kept still as I was able.
It was a hard blow, for it broke the bit of Yorkshire paving, about an
inch thick, into about sixty pieces.
“I got very hard up whilst I was performing at this beer-shop. I had
run away from home, and the performances were only two nights a-week,
and brought me in about six shillings. I wasn’t engaged anywhere else.
One night, a Mr. Emanuel, who had a benefit at the Salmon Saloon,
Union-street, asked me to appear at his benefit. He had never seen
me, but only heard of my performances. I agreed to go, and he got out
the bills, and christened me Signor C----; and he had drawings made
of the most extravagant kind, with me holding my arms out with about
ten fifty-six-pound weights hanging to them by the rings. He had the
weights, hammers, and a tremendous big stone chained outside the door,
and there used to be mobs of people there all day long looking at it.
“This was the first success I made. Mr. Emanuel gave five shillings for
the stone, and had it brought up to the saloon by two horses in a cart
to make a sensation. It weighed from four to five hundred weight. I
think I had such a thing as five men to lift it up for me.
“I had forgotten all about this engagement, and I was at the
coffee-house where I lodged. The fact was, I was in rags, and so shabby
I didn’t like to go, and if he hadn’t come to fetch me I should not
have gone. He drove up in his chaise on the night in question to this
coffee-shop, and he says, ‘Signor C----, make haste; go and change your
clothes, and come along.’ I didn’t know at first he was speaking to
me, for it was the first time I had been Signor C----. Then I told him
I had got my best suit on, though it was very ragged, and no mistake
about it, for I remember there was a good hole at each elbow. He seemed
astonished, and at last proposed that I should wear his great-coat; but
I wouldn’t, because, as I told him, his coat would be as well known at
the saloon as he himself was, and that it didn’t suit me to be seen in
another’s clothes. So he took me just as I was. When we got there, the
landlady was regularly flabbergastered to see a ragged fellow like me
come to be star of the night. She’d hardly speak to me.
“There was a tremendous house, and they had turned above a hundred
away. When I got into the saloon, Emanuel says, ‘What’ll you have to
drink?’ I said, ‘Some brandy;’ but my landlord of the coffee-house,
who had come unbeknown to me, he grumbles out, ‘Ask him what he’ll
have to eat, for he’s had nothing since the slice of bread-and-butter
for breakfast.’ I trod on his toe, and says, ‘Keep quiet, you fool!’
Emanuel behaved like a regular brick, and no mistake. He paid for the
supper and everything. I was regularly ashamed when the landlord let it
out though. That supper put life into me, for it almost had the same
effect upon me as drink.
“It soon got whispered about in the saloon that I was the strong man,
and everybody got handing me their glasses; so I was regularly tipsy
when it was time to go on, and they had put me off to the last on
purpose to draw the people and keep them there drinking.
“I had a regular success. When the women saw the five men put the stone
on my chest, they all of them called out, ‘Don’t! don’t!’ It was a
block like a curb, about a foot thick, and about a four feet six inches
long. I went with Emanuel to buy it. I had never tried such a big one
before. It didn’t feel so heavy on the chest, for, you see, you’ve got
such out-and-out good support on your hands and heels. I’ve actually
seen one man raise a stone and another a waggon. It’s the purchase done
it. I’ve lifted up a cart-horse right off his legs.
“The stone broke after six blows with a twenty-eight pound
sledge-hammer. Then you should have heard the applause. I thought it
would never give over. It smashed all to atoms, just like glass, and
there was the people taking away the bits to keep as a remembrance.
“As I went out the landlady asked me to have a bottle of soda-water.
The landlady was frightened, and told me she had felt sure I should be
killed. I was the second that ever done stone-breaking in England or
abroad, and I’m the first that ever did such a big one. The landlady
was so alarmed that she wouldn’t engage me, for she said I must be
killed one of the nights. Her behaviour was rather different as I went
out to when I came in.
“I, of course, didn’t go on in my rags. I had a first-rate stage dress.
“After this grand appearance I got engaged at Gravesend fair by
Middleton, and there I had eight shillings a-day, and I stopped with
him three weeks over the fair. I used to do my performances outside on
the parade, never inside. I had to do the stone-breaking about nine
or ten times a-day. They were middling stones, some larger and some
smaller, and the smaller ones about half-a-hundred weight, I suppose.
Any man might bring his stone and hammer, and break it himself. The
one who struck was generally chosen from the crowd; the biggest chap
they could find. I’ve heard ’em say to me, ‘Now, old chap, I’ll smash
you all to bits; so look out!’ The fact is, the harder they strike the
better for me, for it smashes it at once, and don’t keep the people in
suspense.
“It was at Gravesend that I met with my second and last accident. With
the cutting of the chest, it is the only one I ever had. The feller
who came up to break the stone was half tipsy and missed his aim, and
obliged me by hitting my finger instead of the stone. I said to him,
‘Mind what you are doing,’ but I popped my hand behind me, and when I
got up I couldn’t make out what the people was crying out about, till
I looked round at my back and then I was smothered in blood. Middleton
said, ‘Good God! what’s the matter?’ and I told him I was hit on the
finger. When the cry was given of ‘All in to begin,’ I went into a
booth close by and had some brandy, and got a doctor to strap up the
finger, and then I went on with the parade business just the same. It
didn’t pain me nothing like what I should have thought. It was too hard
a knock to pain me much. The only time I felt it was when the doctor
dressed it, for it gave me pepper taking the plaster off.
“I was at Gravesend some time, and I went to work again stone-masoning,
and I had a guinea a-week, and in the evening I used to perform at the
Rose Inn. I did just as I liked there. I never charged ’em anything.
I lived in the house and they never charged me anything. It was a
first-rate house. If I wanted five shillings I’d get it from the
landlord. I was there about eleven months, and all that time I lived
there and paid nothing. I had a benefit there, and they wouldn’t even
charge me for printing the bills, or cards, or anything. It was quite
a clear benefit, and every penny taken at the doors was given to me.
I charged a shilling admittance, and the room was crowded, and they
was even on the stairs standing tip-toe to look at me. I wanted some
weights, and asked a butcher to lend ’em to me, and he says, ‘Lend ’em
to you! aye, take the machine and all if it’ll serve you.’ I was a
great favourite, as you may guess.
“After Gravesend I came up to London, and went and played the monkey
at the Bower Saloon. It was the first time I had done it. There was
all the monkey business, jumping over tables and chairs, and all
mischievous things; and there was climbing up trees, and up two
perpendicular ropes. I was dressed in a monkey’s dress; it’s made of
some of their hearth-rugs; and my face was painted. It’s very difficult
to paint a monkey’s face. I’ve a great knack that way, and can always
manage anything of that sort.
“From the Bower I went on to Portsmouth. I’d got hard up again, for
I’d been idle for three months, for I couldn’t get any money, and I
never appear under price. I walked all the way to Portsmouth, carrying
a half-hundred weight, besides my dress, all the way; I played at the
tap-rooms on the road. I did pretty middling, earned my living on the
road, about two shillings a-day. When I got to Portsmouth I did get a
job, and a good job it was, only one shilling and sixpence a-night; but
I thought it better to do that than nothing. I only did comic singing,
and I only knew two songs, but I set to and learnt a lot. I am very
courageous, and if I can’t get my money one way, I will another. With
us, if you’ve got a shilling, you’re a fool if you spend that before
you have another. I stopped at this public-house for two months, and
then a man who came from Portsea, a town close by, came one night, and
he asked me what I was doing. He had heard of what I could do, and he
offered me two pounds a-week to go with him and do the strong business.
He kept the Star Inn at Portsea. I stopped there such a thing as two
years, and I did well. I had great success, for the place was cramm’d
every night. For my benefit, Major Wyatt and Captain Holloway gave me
their bespeak, and permission for the men to come. The admission was
sixpence. Half the regiment marched down, and there was no room for the
public. I was on the stage for two hours during my performances. I was
tired, and fainted away as dead as a hammer after the curtain fell.
“Among other things I announced that I should, whilst suspended from
the ceiling, lift a horse. I had this horse paraded about the town for
a week before my night. There was such a house that numbers of people
was turned away, and a comic singer who was performing at a house
opposite, he put out an announcement that he too would lift a horse,
and when the time came he brought on a clothes-horse.
“The way I did the horse was this: I was hanging by my ankles, and the
horse was on a kind of platform under me. I had two sheets rolled up
and tied round the horse like belly-bands, and then I passed my arms
through them and strained him up. I didn’t keep him long in the air,
only just lifted him off his legs. In the midst of it the bandage got
off his eyes, and then, what with the music and the applauding, the
poor brute got frightened and begun plunging. I couldn’t manage him at
all whilst he was kicking. He got his two hind legs over the orchestra
and knocked all the float-lights out. They kept roaring, ‘Bring him
out! bring him out!’ as if they thought I was going to put him under
my arm--a thundering big brute. I was afraid he’d crack his knees, and
I should have to pay for him. The fiddler was rather uneasy, I can
tell you, and the people began shifting about. I was frightened, and
so I managed to pop part of the sheet over his head, and then I gave a
tremendous strain and brought him back again.
“How the idea of lifting a horse ever came into my head, I don’t know.
It came in a minute; I had never tried it before. I knew I should have
a tremendous purchase. The fact is, I had intended to do a swindle by
having lines passed down my dress, and for somebody behind to pull the
ropes and help me. The town was in an uproar when I announced I should
do it.
“It was at my benefit that I first broke stones with my fist. I don’t
know whose original notion it was. I was not the first; there’s a trick
in it. It’s done this way: anybody can do it. You take a cobbler’s
lapstone, and it’s put on a half-hundred weight; you must hold it half
an inch above, and then the concussion of the fist coming down smashes
it all to bits. Any one can do it.
“I cleared about eight pounds by my benefit. I was a regular swell in
those days. The white coats had just come up, and I had one made with
two-shilling pieces for buttons, and with polished-leather Wellington’s
I’d walk about the town, the king of the place.
“I’ve been down to Manchester performing. I’ve been, too, to the
Standard Theatre as well as the Victoria and the Marylebone. People
won’t believe I really do break the stone on my chest. Some ask me what
I wear under my dress, though the fact is, that if I had anything hard
there, it would just about kill me, for it’s by yielding to the blow
that I save myself. I actually gammoned one chap that the stones were
made of small pieces stuck together with paste, and he offered to give
me any sum to tell him what the paste was made of.
“When I’m engaged for a full performance I do this. All the weights,
and the stone and the hammer, are ranged in front of the stage. Then I
come on dressed in silk tights with a spangled trunk. Then I enter at
the back of the stage, and first do several feats of posturing, such
as skipping through my leg or passing it down my back, or splits. Then
I take a ladder and mount to the top, and stand up on it, and hold
one leg in my hand, shouldering it; and then I give a spring with the
other leg, and shoot off to the other side of the stage and squash down
with both legs open, doing a split. It’s a very good trick, and always
gets a round. Then I do a trick with a chair standing on the seat, and
I take one foot in my hand and make a hoop of the leg, and then hop
with one leg through the hoop of the other, and spring over the back
and come down in a split on the other side. I never miss this trick,
though, if the chair happens to be ricketty, I may catch the toe, but
it doesn’t matter much.
“Then I begin my weight business. I take one half-hundred weight and
hold it up at arm’s-length; and I also hold it out perpendicularly, and
bring it up again and swing it two or three times round the head, and
then throw it up in the air and catch it four or five times running;
not by the ring, as others do, but in the open hand.
“The next trick is doing the same thing with both hands instead of one,
that is with two weights at the same time; and then, after that, I take
up a half-hundred by the teeth, and shouldering the leg at the same,
and in that style I fall down into the splits. Then I raise myself up
gradually, till I’m upright again. After I’m upright I place the weight
on my forehead, and lay down flat on my back with it, without touching
with the hands. I take it off when I’m down and place it in my mouth,
and walk round the stage like a Greenwich-pensioner, with my feet
tucked up like crossing the arms, and only using my knees. Then I tie
three together, and hold them in the mouth, and I put one in each hand.
Then I stand up with them and support them. It’s an awful weight, and
you can’t do much exhibiting with them.
“When I was at Vauxhall, Yarmouth, last year, I hurt my neck very badly
in lifting those weights in the mouth. It pulled out the back of my
neck, and I was obliged to give over work for months. It forced my head
over one shoulder, and then it sunk, as if I’d got a stiff neck. I did
nothing to it, and only went to a doctor-chap, who made me bathe the
neck in hot water. That’s all.
“One of my most curious tricks is what I call the braces trick. It’s a
thing just like a pair of braces, only, instead of a button, there’s a
half-hundred weight at each end, so that there are two behind and two
in front. Then I mount on two swinging ropes with a noose at the end,
and I stretch out my legs into a split, and put a half-hundred on each
thigh, and take up another in my mouth. You may imagine how heavy the
weight is, when I tell you that I pulled the roof of a place in once
at Chelsea. It was a exhibition then. The tiles and all come down, and
near smothered me. You must understand, that in these tricks I have to
put the weights on myself, and raise them from the ground, and that
makes it so difficult.
“The next, and the best, and most difficult trick of all is, I have a
noose close to the ceiling, in which I place one of my ankles, and I’ve
another loose noose with a hook at the end, and I place that on the
other ankle. Two half-hundreds are placed on this hook, and one in each
hand. The moment these weights are put on this ankle, it pulls my legs
right apart, so that they form a straight line from the ceiling, like
a plumb-line, and my body sticks out at the side horizontally, like a
T-square sideways. I strike an attitude when I have the other weights
in my hand, and then another half-hundred is put in my mouth, and I am
swung backwards and forwards for about eight or twelve times. It don’t
hurt the ankle, because the sling is padded. At first it pulls you
about, and gives you a tremendous ricking. After this rope-performance
I take a half-hundred and swing it round about fifty times. It goes
as rapidly as a wheel, and if I was to miss my aim I should knock my
brains out. I have done it seventy times, but that was to take the
shine out of an opposition fellow.
“I always wind up with breaking the stone, and I don’t mind how
thick it is, so long as it isn’t heavy enough to crush me. A common
curb-stone, or a Yorkshire-flag, is nothing to me, and I’ve got so
accustomed to this trick, that once it took thirty blows with a
twenty-eight pound sledge-hammer to break the stone, and I asked for a
cigar and smoked it all the while.
“I’ll tell you another trick I’ve done, and that’s walking on the
ceiling. Of course I darn’t do it in the Professor Sands’ style, for
mine was a dodge. Professor Sands used an air-exhausting boot, on the
model of a fly’s foot, and it was a legitimate performance indeed;
he and another man, to whom he gave the secret of his boots, are the
only two who ever did it. The chap that came over here wasn’t the real
Sands. The fact is well known to the profession, that Sands killed
himself on his benefit night in America. After walking on the marble
slab in the Circus, somebody bet him he couldn’t do it on any ceiling,
and he for a wager went to a Town-hall, and done it, and the ceiling
gave way, and he fell and broke his neck. The chap that came over here
was Sands’ attendant, and he took the name and the boots, and came over
as Professor Sands.
“The first who ever walked on the ceiling, by a dodge, was a man of the
name of Herman, a wizard, who wound up his entertainment at the City of
London by walking on some planks suspended in the air. I was there, and
at once saw his trick. I knew it was a sleight-of-hand thing. I paid
great attention and found him out.
“I then went to work in this way. I bought two planks about thirteen
foot long, and an inch thick. In these planks I had small traps, about
two inches long by one inch wide, let into the wood, and very nicely
fitted, so that the cracks could not be seen. The better to hide the
cracks, I had the wood painted marble, and the blue veins arranged on
the cracks. These traps were bound on the upper side with iron hooping
to strengthen them. Then I made my boots. They were something like
Chinese boots, with a very thick sole, made on the principle of the
bellows of an accordion. These bellows were round, about the size of
a cheese-plate, and six inches deep. To the sole of the boot I had an
iron plate and a square tenter-hook riveted in.
“Then came the performance. There was no net under me, and the planks
was suspended about twenty feet from the stage. I went up on the ladder
and inserted the hook on one boot into the first trap. The sucker to
the boot hid the hook, and made it appear as if I held by suction.
The traps were about six inches apart, and that gave me a very small
step. The hooks being square ones--tenter-hooks--I could slip them
out easily. It had just the same appearance as Sands, and nobody ever
taught me how to do it. I did this feat at the Albion Concert-rooms,
just opposite the Effingham Saloon. I had eighteen shillings a-week
there for doing it. I never did it anywhere else, for it was a bother
to carry the planks about with me. I did it for a month, every night
three times. One night I fell down. You see you can never make sure,
for if you swung a little, it worked the hook off. I always had a chap
walking along under me to catch me, and he broke my fall, so that I
didn’t hurt myself. I ran up again, and did it a second time without an
accident. There was tremendous applause. I think I should have fallen
on my hands if the chap hadn’t been there.
“If the Secretary of State hadn’t put down the balloon business, I
should a made a deal of money. There is danger of course, but so there
is if you’re twenty or thirty feet. They do it now fifty feet high,
and that’s as bad as if you were two hundred or a mile in the air. The
only danger is getting giddy from the height, but those who go up are
accustomed to it.
“I sold the ceiling-walking trick to another fellow for two pounds,
after I had done with it, but he couldn’t manage it. He thought he was
going to do wonders. He took a half-hundred weight along with him, but
he swung like a pendulum, and down he come.
“Why this walking on the ceiling of mine was very near the same as what
Harvey Leach did at the Surrey as the gnome fly. He was a tremendous
clever fellow. His upper part of the body was very perfectly made, but
his legs was so short, they weren’t more than eighteen inches long.
That’s why he walked as much on his hands as his legs. That ‘What is
It,’ at the Egyptian Hall killed him. They’d have made a heap of money
at it if it hadn’t been discovered. He was in a cage, and wonderfully
got up. He looked awful. A friend of his comes in, and goes up to the
cage, and says, ‘How are you, old fellow?’ The thing was blown up in a
minute. The place was in an uproar. It killed Harvey Leach, for he took
it to heart and died.
“I reckon Astley’s is the worst money for any man. If a fellow wants to
be finished up, let him go there. It doesn’t pay so well as the cheap
concerts, unless a man is a very great star, and they must give him his
money.
“There are six men, including myself, who do the strong business.
That’s all I’m beware of in London, or England. Sometimes they change
their names, and comes out as Herrs, or Signors, or Monsieurs, but they
are generally the same fellows. Most of our foreigners in England come
out of Tower-street. There was a house of call there for professionals
of all nations, but that ‘public’ is done up now, and they mostly go to
the Cooper’s Arms now.
“If a strong man properly understands his business, and pays attention
to his engagements, his average earnings will be about two pounds ten
shillings a-week. As it is, they now make less than thirty shillings,
but they spend it so readily that it doesn’t go so far as a working
man’s pound. There’s plenty of people to ask you, ‘What’ll you have?’
but if you’re anything of a man you’re obliged to return the compliment
at some time. The swells get hold of you. Perhaps a bottle of wine is
called for, and then another; well, then a fellow must be no good if
he doesn’t pay for the third when it comes, and the day’s money don’t
run to it, and you’re in a hole.”