‘Two more slaves will I rise from out the unfathomable deep,
Who for a long time have been in perpetual sleep;
They, too, shall share my boon--
Appear as Clown and tottering Pantaloon.
Now away! begin your magic sport,
And bring me back a good report.’
Then I cried, ‘Hulloa! here we are!’ and the sports begin.
“The first _trip_, as we calls it--a dance, to use your terms--is
Harlequin comes in with Columbine for a hornpipe. If he can’t dance,
Clown, as soon as he begins, cries, ‘Here we are!’ and rushes in and
drives them off.
“After that, Clown runs on and says, ‘Here we are!’ and knocks
Pantaloon down; who exclaims, ‘Oh! ain’t I got the tooth-ache!’ Clown
says, ‘Let me feel your tooth. Oh, it’s quite loose! I’ll get a bit
of string and soon have it out.’ Clown goes off for string, Pantaloon
singing out, ‘Murder! murder!’ Clown returns with string and a pistol,
and then ties the string, and cries, ‘Here goes one, and now it’s two,
and here goes three,’ and fires and pulls a wooden tooth, as big as
your fist, with four sharp prongs to it. I’ve had these teeth often
as big as a quartern loaf, but I’m talking of my first appearance.
Pantaloon says, ‘Here, that’s my tooth!’ and Clown replies, ‘So it
is,’ and hits him on the head with it. Then he asks Pantaloon if he’s
better; but he answers, ‘No, I’m worse. Oh! oh! I’ve got a cold in my
gum!’ Then a red-hot poker is introduced, and he burns him with it all
round the stage. That concludes the first scene. Then there’s another
trip, a would-be polka or so; and then comes the bundle-scene. Enter
a Yorkshireman--it’s mostly Harlequins do this, because most of the
others are outside parading, to keep the crowd together--he’s got a
smockfrock on and russet boots at Johnson’s, and he says, ‘I’ve coome
up here to Lunnon to see my Dolly. I feel rather dry, and I’ll just gi’
in here to get half-a-point of yale. I’ll just leave my bunnel outside,
and keep a strict eye on it, for they say as how Lunnon has plenty
of thieves in it.’ Enter Clown, very cautiously. He sees the bundle,
and calls Pantaloon. He tells Pantaloon, ‘I must have it, because I
want it.’ He goes and picks up the bundle, and says to Pantaloon,
‘I shouldn’t wonder but what this bundle belongs to----’ ‘Me,’ the
Yorkshireman says, and the Clown says, ‘Ah, I thought so;’ and then he
takes Pantaloon’s hand, and says, ‘Come along, little boy, we shall get
into trouble,’ and leads him off. They come on again, and this time
Clown tells Pantaloon to get it; so he goes and picks up the bundle,
and Yorkshireman knocks him down. Clown runs off and Pantaloon after.
Clown then returns on his belly, drawing himself on with his hands. He
gets the bundle in his mouth, and is just going off when Yorkshireman
turns round, and Clown seeing him, gives the bundle to Pantaloon, and
says, ‘Hold this.’ Yorkshireman seizes Clown and tells him he wants his
bundle. Pantaloon having run away with it, Clown says, ‘I haven’t got
it, starch me’ (that means, ‘search me’); and there is a regular run
over the stage crying ‘Hot beef! hot beef!’ (instead of ‘Stop thief!’)
The Yorkshireman collars Pantaloon, and says, ‘I’ll take you to the
station-house,’ and Clown exclaims, ‘Yes, and I’ll take this bundle
down the lane’ (meaning Petticoat-lane, because there is a sale for
anything there). Then comes the catch-scene as we call it; that is,
they all come on in the dark, Clown singing, ‘Puss, puss! have you seen
my pussy?’ Then in pops the fairy, and cries, ‘Hold! your magic sports
is run, and thus I step between.’ Pantaloon adds, ‘Aye, it’s all so
gay;’ and Clown cries, ‘Yes, and all serene;’ and the fairy says, ‘And
with my magic wand I change the scene.’ Then everybody sings:--
‘Now our pantomime’s done,
Here’s an end to our fun,
We shall shortly commence again:
Our tricks are o’er,
And we’re friends once more,
We shall shortly commence again.’
“Then the curtain falls, and Clown puts his head out on one side and
exclaims, ‘It’s all,’ and Pantaloon pops out at the other side and
adds, ‘over.’
“The handing man, who has done Robert, then shouts out from the top,
‘Pass out!’ in a sepulchral voice, and a door opens in the side of the
stage for the people to leave by. That day I was with old Johnson--we
used to call him ‘Snuffy Johnson,’ ’cos he carried a lot of snuff
in his waistcoat pocket--we were very busy, and there was a good
many people waiting on the outside to come in, so we only did about
two of them regular performances; and then about six o’clock in the
evening the crowd got so great, old Johnson used to hollow through
the parade-door, over people’s heads, ‘John Aderley,’ just as we had
commenced playing, and that meant ‘Cut it short.’ We used to finish it
up sharp then, and finish all up in six or seven minutes. We used to
knock Robert the Devil into a very little space, doing the scenes, but
cutting them short; and as for the pantomime, we had scarcely commenced
with ‘Two more slaves will I rise from out the unfathomable deep,’ than
we were singing, ‘Our pantomime’s done, here’s an end to our fun.’
Sometimes the people would grumble awful, and at others they laughed to
see how they was swindled.
“I got on very fair on my first appearance as Clown, considering the
circumstances, but I had, you see, four of the best parading comic men
opposing me. There was Teddy W---- as Silly Billy, and Black Sambo as
Black Fop, and Funny Felix as ring clown, and Steve Sanderson, another
clown, at Frazier’s Circus, next door to us; and we didn’t stand much
chance at clowning alongside of them, as they’re the best paraders
out. Besides, Frazier’s booth took nearly all the ground up; and as we
drawed up on the ground (that is, with the parade-carriages) late on
Sunday evening, we were obliged to have a plot next to the Circus, and
we had the town pump right in the audience part, close to the first
seat in the gallery, and the Obelisk--or rather a cross it is--took up
one side of the stage, which next day we used as the castle in Blue
Beard, when the girl gets up on a ladder to the top of the railings,
which had a shutter on ’em, and that was Fatima looking out from the
spire of the castle for her Salem. Ah! ’twas a great hit, for we put an
old scene round it, and it had a capital effect.
“What we do when we go out clowning to a travelling theatre is this.
This is what I did at Enfield: we arrived late and drawed up the
parade-carriages on the ground, which the gov. had gone on a-head
to secure. Then we went to sleep for awhile--pitched on a shutter
underneath the parade-carriages, for it had been wet weather, and we
couldn’t sleep on the canvas for the booth, for it had been sopped
with rain at Edmonton fair. As soon as it was break of day we begun
getting up the booth, and being short-handed it took us till three
o’clock before we was ready. First we had to measure our distances
and fix the parade-waggons. Then we planted our king pole on the one
in the centre; then we put our back-pole on the one near the parade;
then we put on our ridge at top, and our side-rails; and then we put
our side-ridges, and sling our rafters. We then roll the tilt up,
which is for the roof, and it gets heavy with dirt, and we haul it
up to the top and unroll it again and fasten it again; then we fix
the sides up, with shutters about six feet square, which you see on
the top of the travelling parade-carriages. We fixes up the theatre
and the seats which we take with us. All the scenes roll up, and is
done up in bundles. The performers drop under the parade-waggons, and
there’s a sacking up to divide the men’s part from the women. There’s a
looking-glass--sometimes an old bit or a two-penny one starred, or any
old thing we can get hold of--and the gov. gives you out your dress. We
always provide our own slips and such-like.
“When we parade outside, it all depends upon what kind of Pantaloon
you’ve got with you, as to what business you can make. When we first
come out on the parade all the company is together, and we march round,
form a half-circle, or dress it, as we say, while the band plays ‘Rule
Britannia,’ or some other operatic air. Then the manager generally
calls out, ‘Now, Mr. Merryman, state the nature of the performances to
be given here to-day.’ Then I come forward, and this is the dialogue:
‘Well, Mr. Martin, what am I to tell them?’ ‘The truth, sir! what
they’ll see here to-day.’ ‘Well, if they stop long enough they’ll see
a great many people, I shouldn’t wonder.’ ‘No, no, sir, I want you to
tell them what they’ll see inside our theatre.’ ‘Well, sir, they’ll
see a splendid drama by first-rate performers, of Robert Dooke of
Normandy, with a variety of singing and dancing, with a gorgeous and
comic pantomime, with new dresses and scenery, and everything combined
to make this such an entertainment as was never before witnessed in
this town, and all for the small charge of three shillings.’ ‘No,
no, Mr. Merryman, threepence.’ ‘What! threepence? I shan’t perform
at a threepenny show.’ And then I pretend to go down the steps as if
leaving; he pulls me back, and says, ‘Come here, sir; what are you
going to do?’ ‘I shan’t spoil my deputation playing for threepence.’
‘But you must understand, Merryman, we intend giving them one and all
a treat, that the working-classes may enjoy theirselves as well as
noblemen.’ ‘Then if that’s the case I don’t mind, but only for this
once.’
“Then I begin spouting again and again, always ending up with ‘to be
witnessed for the low charge of threepence.’ Then Pantaloon comes up
to say what he’s going to do, and I give him the ‘nap,’ and knock him
on his back. He cries ‘I’m down,’ and I turn him over and pick him up,
and say, ‘And now you’re up.’ Then the company form a half set and do a
quadrille. When they have scrambled through that, Clown will do a comic
dance, and then some burlesque statues. This is the way them statues
are done: I go inside and get a birch-broom, and put a large piece of
tilt or old cloth round me, and stand just inside the curtains at the
entrance from the parade, ready to come out when wanted. Then the male
portion of the company get just to the top of the steps, and Pantaloon
says to one of them, ‘Did you speak?’ He says, ‘When?’ and Pantaloon
says, ‘Now;’ and the whole lot make a noise, hollowing out, ‘Oh, oh,
oh!’ as if they was astonished, but it’s only to attract attention.
Then the gong strikes, and the trumpets flourishes, and everybody
shouts, ‘Hi, hi! look here!’ Then, naturally, all the people turn
towards the caravan to see what’s up. Then they clear a passage-way
from the front to the entrance and back, and bring me forth with this
bit of cloth before me. The music flourishes again, and they make a
tremendous tumult, crying out, ‘Look here! look here!’ and when all are
looking I drop the cloth, and then I stand in the position of Hercules,
king of Clubs, with a birch-broom across my shoulders, and an old hat
on a-top of my wig. Then the band strikes up the statue music, and
I goes through the statues; such as Ajax defying the lightning, and
Cain killing his brother Abel; and it finishes up with the fighting
and dying Gladiator. As a finale I do a back-fall, and pretend to be
dead. The company then picks me up and carry me, lying stiff, on their
shoulders round the parade. They carry me inside, and shout out, ‘All
in to begin; now we positively commence.’ Then they drive everybody in
off the parade. When the public have taken their seats then we come
strolling out, one at a time, till we all get out on the parade again,
because the place isn’t sufficiently full. It’s what we call ‘making
a sally.’ The checktakers at the door prevent anybody leaving if they
want to come out again.
“Then I get up to some nonsense again. Perhaps I’ll get up a lot of
boys out of the fair, and make ’em sit on the parade in a row, and keep
a school, as I call it. I get an old property fiddle, and I tell them,
when I play they must sing. Then I give out a hymn. The bow has a lot
of notches in it, and there’s a bit of wood sticking up in the fiddle;
so that when I plays it goes ‘ricketty, ricketty,’ like. This is the
hymn I gives out:--
‘When I can shoot my rifle clear
At pigeons in the skies,
I’ll bid farewell to pork and peas,
And live on pigeon pies.’
“Of course, when they sings, they make a horrible noise, or even if
they dont, I begin to wallop them with my bow. I then tell them I must
teach them something easier first. Then I give them--
‘Alas! old Grimes is dead and gone,
We ne’er shall see him more;
He used to wear a old great coat
All buttoned down before.’
Then I finish up by putting on the boys a lot of masks, and some have
old soldiers’ coats; and I give them implements of war, such as old
brooms or sticks, and then I put them through their military exercises.
I stand in front, with the birch-broom as my gun, and I tell them
they must do as I do. Then I cry, ‘File arms,’ and all mark their own
muskets. I tell them to lay them all down; and after they have laid
down their arms I tell them to shoulder arms, which makes a shout,
because they haven’t got no arms. One boy, who is put up to it, says,
‘I’ve got no arms;’ I go up to him and catch hold of his arms, and
ask him what he calls ‘these here.’ Then I make him put them on his
shoulders, and tell him, that’s ‘shoulder arms.’ Then I tell them to
ground arms, and I do it at the time, stooping down and putting my
arms on the ground. I then call them to attention, and up comes the
Pantaloon on a basket-horse, and I tell them they are going to be
reviewed by the Duke. I give them all the implements again, and put
them to stand attention. Pantaloon gallops round them, reviewing. He
wears a large flap cocked-hat and soldier’s old coat. He makes a bit
of fun with his horse, making it kick, and breaking the ranks of my
soldiers. Then I quarrel with him about that, and he says, ‘He’s a
right to do as he likes, because he’s my superior horse-ifer.’ Then
he orders me to the other end of the parade, to stand attention, with
my back towards the boys. Then he tells them to ride about face and
charge, and they all run and charge me in behind. They run two or three
times round the parade, still charging me, until I run inside to the
theatre, and all the company shout out, ‘All in to begin; we are now
positively to commence.’ We then get them in off the parade again, and
if the place is full begin; if not, we gradually crawl out again one
by one, and one of the girls dances a hornpipe or a Highland fling. We
then make a sally, ‘All in again,’ and by that time we generally begin.
“This is the parade business that is most popular at fairs; we do a few
other things, but they are all much of a muchness. It’s very hard work;
and I have worked, since being with Snuffy Johnson, seventeen hours of
a-day; but then we have not had so much to do on the outside. Sometimes
I’ve been so tired at night, that I’ve actually laid down in my dress
and never washed, but slept like that all night.
“The general pay for a clown, during fair-time, is 5_s._ or 6_s._
a-day, but that usually ends in your moving on the first day; then
4_s._ on the second, and, perhaps, 3_s._ on the third. The reason is,
that the second and third day is never so good as the first. The excuse
is, that business is not so good, and expenses are heavy; and if you
don’t like it, you needn’t come again. They don’t stand about what
you agree for; for instance, if it’s a wet day and you don’t open,
there’s no pay. Richardson’s used, when the old man was alive, to be
more money, but now it’s as bad as the rest of ’em. If you go on shares
with a sharing company it averages about the same. We always share
at the drum-head at night, when all’s over. It’s usually brought out
between the stage and the bottom seat of the gallery. The master or
missus counts out the money. The money on the drum-head may, if it’s a
good fair, come to 16_l._ or 18_l._, or, as it most usually is, 9_l._
or 10_l._ I have known us to share 1_l._ a-piece afore now; and I’ve
known what it is to take 10_d._ for a share. We usually take two fairs
a-week, or we may stay a night or two after the fair’s over, and have a
bespeak night. The wages of a clown comes to--if you average it--1_l._
a-week all the year round, and that’s puffing it at a good salary, and
supposing you to be continually travelling. Very likely, at night we
have to pull down the booth after performing all day, and be off that
night to another fair--15 or 16 miles off it may be--and have to build
up again by the next afternoon. The women always ride on the top of
the parade carriages, and the men occasionally riding and shoving up
behind the carriages up hill. The only comfort in travelling is a short
pipe, and many a time I’ve drowned my woes and troubles in one.
“The scene of sharing at the drum-head is usually this,--while the
last performance is going on the missus counts up the money; and she
is supposed to bring in all the money she has taken, but that we don’t
know, and we are generally fiddled most tremendous. When the theatre’s
empty, she, or him, generally says, ‘Now lads, please, now ladies!
it’s getting late;’ and when they have all mustered it’s generally
the cry, ‘We’ve had a bad fair!’ The people seldom speak. She then
takes the number of the company,--we generally averages some sixteen
performers,--and after doing so she commences sharing, taking up two
or three shares, according to the ground-rent; one then to herself for
taking money; then for the husband being there, (for they don’t often
perform); then they takes shares for the children, for they makes
them go on for the fairies, and on our parade. Snuffy Johnson used to
take two shares for the wardrobes and fittings, and that is the most
reasonable of any of ’em, for they mostly take double that; indeed, we
always took six. Then there are two shares for ground-rent, and two for
travelling expenses. The latter two shares depend entirely upon the
fair; for the expenses are just the same whether we takes money or not,
so that if it’s a bad fair, more has to be deducted, and that’s the
worse for us, on both sides. That makes twelve or thirteen shares to
be deducted before the men touch a penny for themselves. Any strolling
professional who reads that will say, ‘Well, ’tis very considerate; for
it’s under the mark, and not over.’
“When we have finished at one fair, if we want to go to another the
next day, as soon as the people have gone in for the last performance
we commence taking down the pay-box, and all the show-fittings on the
outside, and all that isn’t wanted for the performance. As soon as the
mummers have done their first slang, if they are not wanted in the
pantomime they change themselves and go to work pulling down. When the
pantomime’s over, every one helps till all’s packed up; then sharing
takes place, and we tramp on by night to the next fair. We then camp as
well as we can till daylight, if it isn’t morning already, and to work
we go building for the fair; and in general, by the time we’ve done
building, it’s time to open.
“I’ve travelled with ‘Star’s Theatre Royal,’ and ‘Smith and Webster’s,’
(alias Richardson’s), and ‘Frederick’s Theatre,’ and ‘Baker’s
Pavilion,’ and ‘Douglass’s travelling Shakspearian Saloon;’ (he’s got
scenes from Shakspear’s plays all round the front, and it’s the most
splendid concern on the road), and I’ve done the comic business at all
of them. They are all conducted on the same principle, and do the same
kind of business, as that I’ve described to you.
“When we’re travelling it depends upon the business as to what we eat.
They talk of strolling actors living so jollily and well, but I never
knew it fall to my share. What we call a mummer’s feed is potatoes
and herrings, and they always look out for going into a town where
there’s plenty of fresh herrings. A fellow we called Nancy Dawson was
the best hand at herrings. I’ve known him go into a tavern and ask
for the bill of fare, and shout out, ‘Well, Landlord, what have you
got for dinner?’ Perhaps he’d say, ‘There’s beef and veal, sir, very
nice--just ready;’ and then he’d say, ‘No, I’m sick of meat; just get
me a nice bloater!’ and if it came to much more than a penny there was
a row. If we are doing bad business, and we pass a field of swedes,
there’s a general rush for the pull. The best judges of turnips is
strolling professionals. I recollect, in Hampshire, once getting into
a swede field, and they was all blighted: we pulled up a hundred, I
should think, but when we cut them open they was all flaxy inside, and
we, after all, had to eat the rind. We couldn’t get a feed. Sausages
and fagots (that’s made of all the stale sausages and savaloys, and
unsightly bits of meat what won’t sell) is what we gets hold of
principally. The women have to make shifts as we do. We always get
plenty of beer, even when we can’t get money; for we can sing a song or
so, and then the yokels stand something: besides, there’s hardly a town
we go into without some of the yokels being stage-struck, and they feel
quite delighted to be among the professionals, and will give us plenty
of beer if we’ll talk to them about acting.
“It’s impossible to say how many clowns there are working at canvas
theatres. There’s so many meddling at it,--not good uns, but trying
to be. I can mention fifty, I am sure, by name. I shouldn’t think you
would exaggerate, if you was to say there was from one hundred and
fifty to two hundred who call themselves clowns. Many of the first-rate
clowns now in London have begun at strolling. There’s Herring, and
Lewis, and Nelson, and plenty more, doing well now.
“It’s a hard life, and many’s the time we squeedge a laugh out, when
it’s like killing us to do it. I’ve never known a man break down at a
fair, done up, for, you see, the beer keeps us up; but I’ve known one
chap to faint on the parade from exhaustion, and then get up, as queer
as could be, and draw twopence and go and have a fish and bread. A
woman at an oyster-stall alongside of the theatre give him a drop of
beer. He was hearty and hungry, and had only joined lately,--regular
hard up; so he went two days without food. When we shared at night he
went and bought a ham-bone, and actually eat himself asleep, for he
dropped off with the bone in his hand.”