“Frequently when I am playing the fool in the streets, I feel very sad
at heart. I can’t help thinking of the bare cupboards at home; but
what’s that to the world? I’ve often and often been at home all day
when it has been wet, with no food at all, either to give my children
or take myself, and have gone out at night to the public-houses to
sing a comic song or play the funnyman for a meal--you may imagine
with what feelings for the part--and when I’ve come home I’ve call’d
my children up from their beds to share the loaf I had brought back
with me. I know three or more clowns as miserable and bad off as
myself. The way in which our profession is ruined is by the stragglers
or outsiders, who are often men who are good tradesmen. They take to
the clown’s business only at holiday or fair time, when there is a
little money to be picked up at it, and after that they go back to
their own trades; so that, you see, we, who are obliged to continue
at it the year through, are deprived of even the little bit of luck
we should otherwise have. I know only of another regular street clown
in London besides myself. Some schools of acrobats, to be sure, will
have a comic character of some kind or other, to keep the pitch up;
that is, to amuse the people while the money is being collected: but
these, in general, are not regular clowns. They are mostly dressed and
got up for the occasion. They certainly don’t do anything else but the
street comic business, but they are not pantomimists by profession.
The street clowns generally go out with dancers and tumblers. There
are some street clowns to be seen with the Jacks-in-the-greens; but
they are mostly sweeps, who have hired their dress for the two or three
days, as the case may be. I think there are three regular clowns in the
metropolis, and one of these is not a professional: he never smelt the
sawdust, I know, sir. The most that I have known have been shoemakers
before taking to the business. When I go out as a street clown, the
first thing I do is a comic medley dance; and then after that I crack a
few jokes, and that is the whole of my entertainment. The first part of
the medley dance is called ‘the good St. Anthony’ (I was the first that
ever danced the polka in the streets); then I do a waltz, and wind up
with a hornpipe. After that I go through a little burlesque business. I
fan myself, and one of the school asks me whether I am out of breath?
I answer, ‘No, the breath is out of me.’ The leading questions for
the jokes are all regularly prepared beforehand. The old jokes always
go best with our audiences. The older they are, the better for the
streets. I know, indeed, of nothing new in the joking way; but even if
there was, and it was in anyway deep, it would not do for the public
thoroughfares. I have read a great deal of ‘Punch,’ but the jokes are
nearly all too high there; indeed, I can’t say I think very much of
them myself. The principal way in which I’ve got up my jokes is through
associating with other clowns. We don’t make our jokes ourselves; in
fact, I never knew one clown who did. I must own that the street clowns
like a little drop of spirits, and occasionally a good deal. They are
in a measure obligated to it. I can’t fancy a clown being funny on
small beer; and I never in all my life knew one who was a teetotaller.
I think such a person would be a curious character, indeed. Most of
the street clowns die in the workhouses. In their old age they are
generally very wretched and poverty-stricken. I can’t say what I think
will be the end of me. I daren’t think of it, sir.”
A few minutes afterwards I saw this man dressed as Jim Crow, with his
face blackened, dancing and singing in the streets as if he was the
lightest-hearted fellow in all London.