The character of “Silly Billy” is a kind of clown, or rather a
clown’s butt; but not after the style of Pantaloon, for the part is
comparatively juvenile. Silly Billy is supposed to be a schoolboy,
although not dressed in a charity-boy’s attire. He is very popular with
the audience at the fairs; indeed, they cannot do without him. “The
people like to see Silly Billy,” I was told, “much more than they do
Pantaloon, for he gets knocked about more though, but he gives it back
again. A good Silly,” said my informant, “has to imitate all the ways
of a little boy. When I have been going to a fair, I have many a time
stopped for hours watching boys at play, learning their various games,
and getting their sayings. For instance, some will go about the streets
singing:
‘Eh, higgety, eh ho!
Billy let the water go!’
which is some song about a boy pulling a tap from a water-butt, and
letting the water run. There’s another:
‘Nicky nickey nite,
I’ll strike a light!’
I got these both from watching children whilst playing. Again, boys
will swear ‘By the liver and lights of a cobbler’s lapstone!’ and their
most regular desperate oath is,
‘Ain’t this wet? ain’t it dry?
Cut my throat if I tells a lie.’
They’ll say, too ‘S’elp my greens!’ and ‘Upon my word and say so!’ All
these sayings I used to work up into my Silly Billy, and they had their
success.
“I do such things as these, too, which is regularly boyish, such as
‘Give me a bit of your bread and butter, and I’ll give you a bit of
my bread and treacle.’ Again, I was watching a lot of boys playing at
pitch-button, and one says, ‘Ah, you’re up to the rigs of this hole;
come to my hole--you can’t play there!’ I’ve noticed them, too, playing
at ring-taw, and one of their exclamations is ‘Knuckle down fair, and
no funking.’ All these sayings are very useful to make the character
of Silly Billy perfect. Bless you, sir, I was two years studying boys
before I came out as Silly Billy. But then I persevere when I take a
thing in hand; and I stick so close to nature, that I can’t go far
wrong in that line. Now this is a regular boy’s answer: when somebody
says ‘Does your mother know you’re out?’ he replies, ‘Yes, she do; but
I didn’t know the organ-man had lost his monkey!’ That always went
immense.
“It’s impossible to say when Silly Billy first come out at fairs, or
who first supported the character. It’s been popular ever since a fair
can be remembered. The best I ever saw was Teddy Walters. He’s been at
all the fairs round the universe--England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales,
and France. He belonged to a circus when he went abroad. He’s done
Silly Billy these forty year, and he’s a great comic singer beside. I
was reckoned very clever at it. I used to look it by making up so young
for it. It tires you very much, for there’s so much exertion attached
to it by the dancing and capering about. I’ve done it at the fairs, and
also with tumblers in the street; only, when you do it in the street,
you don’t do one-half the business.
“The make-up for a Silly Billy is this: Short white trousers and shoes,
with a strap round the ankle, long white pinafore with a frill round
the neck, and red sleeves, and a boy’s cap. We dress the head with the
hair behind the ears, and a dab of red on the nose and two patches of
black over the eyebrows. When I went to the fair I always took three
pairs of white trousers with me. The girls used to get up playing larks
with me, and smearing my white trousers with gingerbread. It’s a very
favourite character with the women--they stick pins into you, as if you
were a pin-cushion. I’ve had my thighs bleeding sometimes. One time,
during Greenwich, a ugly old woman came on the parade and kissed me,
and made me a present of a silver sixpence, which, I needn’t say, was
soon spent in porter. Why, I’ve brought home with me sometimes toys
enough to last a child a fortnight, if it was to break one every day,
such as carts and horses, cock and breeches, whistles, &c. You see,
Silly Billy is supposed to be a thievish sort of a character, and I
used to take the toys away from the girls as they were going into the
theatre, and then I’d show it to the Clown and say, ‘Oh, look what that
nice lady’s give me! I shall take it home to my mother.’
“I’ve done Silly Billy for Richardson’s, and near every booth of
consequence. The general wages is from 5_s._ to 7_s._ 6_d._ the day,
but my terms was always the three half-crowns. When there’s any fairs
on, I can always get a job. I always made it a rule never to go far
away from London, only to Greenwich or Gravesend, but not farther, for
I can make it better in town working the concert-rooms. There are some
who do nothing but Silly Billy; and then, if you take the year round,
it comes to three days’ work a-week. The regular salary doesn’t come
to more than a pound a-week, but then you make something out of those
who come up on the parade, for one will chuck you 6_d._, some 1_s._ and
2_s._ 6_d._ We call those parties ‘prosses.’ I have had such a thing
as 5_s._ give to me. We are supposed to share this among the company,
and we generally do. These are the ‘nobbings,’ and may send up your
earnings to as much as 25_s._ a-week, besides drink, which you can
have more given to you than you want.
“When we go about the streets with tumblers, we mostly only sing a
song, and dance, and keep the ring whilst the performance is going on.
We also ‘nob,’ or gather the money. I never heard of a Silly Billy
going out busking in tap-rooms and that. The tumblers like the Silly
Billy, because the dress is attractive; but they are getting out of
date now, since the grotesque clown is so much in the street. I went
about with a school termed ‘The Demons,’ and very clever they was,
though they’ve all broke up now, and I don’t know what’s become of
them. There were four of them. We did middling, but we could always
manage to knock up such a thing as 20_s._ each a-week. I was, on and
off, about six months with them. After their tumbling, then my turn
would begin. The drummer would say: ‘Turn and turn about’s fair play.
Billy, now it’s your turn. A song from Billy; and if we meet with any
encouragement, ladies and gentlemen, the young man here will tie his
legs together and chuck several summersets.’ Then I’d sing such a song
as ‘Clementina Clements,’ which begins like this:
‘You talk of modest girls,
Now I’ve seen a few,
But there’s none licks the one
I’m sticking up to.
But some of her faults
Would make some chaps ill;
But, with all her faults,
Yes, I love her still.
Such a delicate duck was Clementina Clements;
Such a delicate duck I never did see.’
“There’s one verse where she won’t walk over a potato-field because
they’ve got eyes, and another when she faints at seeing a Dutch doll
without clothes on. Then she doesn’t like tables’ legs, and all such as
that, and that’s why she is ‘such a delicate duck.’ That song always
tells with the women. Then I used to sing another, called ‘What do men
and women marry for?’ which was a very great favourite. One verse that
went very well was:
‘If a good wife you’ve got,
(But there’s very few of those,)
Your money goes just like a shot:
They’re everlasting wanting clothes.
And when you’ve bought ’em all you can,
Of course you cannot buy them more;
They cry, Do you call yourself a man?
Was this what we got married for?’
“When I danced, it was merely a comic dance--what we call a ‘roley
poley.’ Sometimes, when we had been walking far, and pitching a good
many times, the stones would hurt my feet awful with dancing.
“Pitching with tumblers is nothing compared to fair-parading. There
you are the principal of the comic men after Clown, for he’s first. We
have regular scenes, which take twenty minutes working through. When
the parade is slack, then comes the Silly Billy business. There’s a
very celebrated sketch, or whatever you call it, which Clown and Silly
Billy do together, taking off mesmerism.
“Clown comes on, dressed up in a tall white hat, and with a cloak on.
He says that he has just arrived from the island of Mititti, and that
he’s the great Doctor Bokanki, the most celebrated mesmeriser in the
world. He says, ‘Look at me. Here I am. Ain’t I mesmerised elephants?
Ain’t I mesmerised monkeys? and ain’t I going to mesmerise him?’ He
then tells Silly Billy to sit in the chair. Then he commences passing
his hands across his eyes. He asks Billy, ‘What do you see, Billy?’
He turns his face, with his shut eyes, towards the crowd, and says,
‘A man with a big nose, sir, and such a many pimples on his face.’
‘And now what do you see, Billy?’ ‘Oh, ain’t that gal a-winking at
me! You be quiet, or I’ll tell my mother.’ ‘Now what do you see,
Billy?’ ‘Nothink.’ Then the doctor turns to the crowd, and says, ‘Now,
ladies and gentlemen, I shall touch him on the fakement at the back
of his head which is called a bump. Oh, my eyes! ain’t Billy’s head
a-swelling! This bump, ladies and gentlemen, is called a organ--not a
church nor yet a chapel organ, nor yet one of them they grind in the
street. And here’s another organ,’ he says, putting his hand on Billy’s
stomach. ‘This here is called his wittling department organ, or where
he puts his grub. I shall now touch him on another fakement, and make
him sing.’ Then he puts his finger on Billy’s head, and Billy sings:
‘As I one day was hawking my ware,
I thought I’d invent something novel and rare;
For as I’m not green, and I know what’s o’clock,
So I’ll have a go in at the pine-apple rock.
Tol de ro lay, tol de ro lay.’
“Then Billy becomes quiet again, and the doctor says, ‘I’ll now, ladies
and gentlemen, touch him on another fakement, and cause Billy to cry.
This here is his organ of the handling department.’ Then he takes
Billy’s finger and bites it, and Billy begins to roar like a town bull.
Then the doctor says, ‘I’ll now, ladies and gentlemen, touch him on
another fakement, whereby the youth can tell me what I’ve got in my
hand.’ He then puts his hand in his coat-tail pocket, and says, ‘Billy,
what have I got in my hand?’ and Billy says, ‘Ah, you nasty beast! why
it’s a--it’s a--it’s a--oh, I don’t like to say!’ They do this a lot
of times, Billy always replying, ‘Oh, I don’t like to say!’ until at
last he promises that, if he won’t tell his mother, he will; and then
he says, ‘It’s a small-tooth comb.’ ‘Very right, Billy; and what’s in
it?’ ‘Why, one of them ’ere things that crawls.’ ‘Very right, Billy;
and what is it?’ ‘Why, it’s a--it’s a black-beetle.’ ‘Very right,
Billy; look again. Do you see anything else?’ ‘There’s some crumbs.’
Then he tells Billy, that as he is such a good boy he’ll bring him to;
and Billy says, ‘Oh, don’t, please, sir; one’s quite enough.’ Then he
brings him to, and Billy says, ‘Oh, ain’t it nice! Oh, it’s so golly!
Here, you young woman, I wish you’d let me touch your bumps.’ Then, if
the people laugh, he adds, ‘You may laugh, but it gives you a all-over
sort of a feeling, as if you had drunk three pints of pickling vinegar.’
“That’s a very favourite scene; but I haven’t give it you all, for it
would fill a volume. It always makes a hit; and Billy has a rare chance
of working comic attitudes and so on when the doctor touches his bumps.
“There’s another very celebrated scene for Silly Billy. It’s what we
call the preaching scene. Silly Billy mounts up a ladder, and Clown
holds it at the bottom, and looks through the steps. Clown has to do
the clerk to Billy’s parson. Billy begins by telling the clerk that
he must say ‘Barley sugar’ at the end of every sentence he preaches.
Billy begins in this way:--‘Keyind brethren, and you fair damsels,’
and he’s supposed to be addressing the chaps and gals on the parade,
‘I hope that the text I shall give you will be a moral to you, and
prevent you from eating the forbidden sweets of--’ ‘Barley sugar!’ ‘No,
you fool--sin! and that will put you in the right path as you walk
through the fields of--’ ‘Barley sugar!’ ‘No; virtue, you fool! My
text is taken from the epistle of Thomas to the Ethiopians, the first
chapter, and two first slices off a leg of mutton, where it says so
beautifully--’ ‘Barley sugar!’ ‘No, no; that’s not it! Now it come to
go along in the first year in the first month, two days before that,
as we was journeying through the land of--’ ‘Barley sugar!’ ‘No, no,
you fool! keep quiet. Flowerpotamia, we met a serpent, and from his
mouth was issuing--’ ‘Barley sugar!’ ‘No, no! fire.’ Then all the
people on the parade jump up and shout, ‘Where?’ Then Billy says, ‘Oh,
my sister’s tom-cat, here’s a congregation! Sit down.’ When they are
all quiet again, Billy goes on: ‘Now this I say unto you--’ ‘Barley
sugar!’ ‘Keep quiet, will you!’ and he hits Clown with his foot. ‘Two
shall be well and two shall be queer. Oh, ain’t I ill! Go, men of
little understanding, and inherit a basin of pea-soup at the cook-shop,
together with--’ ‘Barley sugar!’ ‘No such thing!--my blessing. Unto you
will I give nothing, and unto you just half as much--’ ‘Barley sugar!’
‘Hold your tongue! You that have had nothing shall give it back again,
and you that had nothing at all, you shall keep it. Now let us sing--’
‘Barley sugar!’ ‘No; a song.’ Then Billy tells them to get their books,
and they take up pint pots, or whatever they can get. ‘Let us sing,’
and they all jump up, and they all begin:
‘If I was a drayman’s horse
One quarter of the year,
I’d put my tail where my head ought to be,
And I’d drink up all the--’
‘Barley sugar!’--‘Hold your tongue!--beer.’ After all of them have
sung, Billy says, ‘Now let us say,’ and all of them howl, ‘Aye, aye.’
‘Now is the winter of our discontent--
We have not enough money to pay our rent;
And by all the clouds that tip our house,
We’ve not enough food to feed a ----’
‘Barley sugar!’ ‘Yes, barley sugar,’ says Billy. Then all
the congregation cries--‘O--o--o--o;’ and Clown says,
‘Bar--bar--bar--barley sugar,’ and he is so much affected he weeps and
goes to wipe his eyes, and lets the ladder fall, and down comes Billy.
He gives sundry kicks, and then pretends to be dying. The congregation
say, ‘Peace be with you, Billy,’ and he answers, ‘Yes, peas-pudding
and fried taters;’ and the Clown howls out, ‘Barley sugar!’ When Billy
is dead, if business isn’t very good, they put the body on the ladder,
and form a procession. The music goes at the head and plays a hornpipe,
slowly, and then they leave the booth, and parade through the fair
among the people, with Clown as chief mourner. The people are bursting
their sides, and wherever we go they follow after. All the mourners
keep crying, ‘Oh, oh, oh, Billy’s dead!’ and then Billy turns round,
and sometimes says, ‘Don’t be fools! it’s only a lark:’ or else, ‘Don’t
tell mother; she’ll give me a hiding.’ This procession business always
brings a flock behind us, and fills the theatre, or goes a great way
towards it. When I have been Silly Billy, and representing this scene,
and been carried through the fair, I’ve been black and blue from the
girls coming up and pinching me through the ladder. The girls are
wonderfully cheeky at fairs, and all for a lark. They used to get me
so precious wild, I couldn’t help coming to life, and say, ‘Quiet, you
hussies!’ But it were no good, for they’d follow you all about, and
keep on nipping a fellow.
“Another celebrated scene or sketch is the teetotal one, and a rich
one it is. Billy is supposed to have joined the temperance parties.
He calls for a tub to preach upon, and he says he will consider it a
favour if they could let it be a water-butt. They lift Billy on to
the tub, and a cove--Clown generally--sits under to take the chair of
the meeting. Then the paraders stand about, and I begin: ‘Ladies and
gentlemen, waking friends, and lazy enemies, and Mr. Chairman, what
I’m about to tell you I’m a stanch teetotaler.’ ‘Hear, hear, hear,’
everybody cries. ‘I have been so for now two--’ and the Clown suggests
‘Years.’ ‘No, minutes. I’d have you avoid water as you would avoid a
bull that wasn’t in a chaney-shop.’ ‘Hear, hear, hear.’ ‘I once knew
a friend of mine who drank water till he was one solid mass of ice;
and he drank tea till the leaves grew out of his nose.’ ‘Oh, oh, hear,
hear.’ ‘He got so fat, you couldn’t see him. This, my friends, comes of
tea-drinking!’ ‘Hear, hear, hear.’ ‘I hope, kind friends, this will be
a lesson to you to avoid drinking too much’--Then the chairman jumps
up and says, ‘Beer!’ ‘No, no; tea. Drink in moderation, and never drink
more than I do. Two pots of ale, three pints of porter, four glasses of
gin, five of rum, and six of brandy, is enough for any man at one time.
Don’t drink more, please.’ ‘Hear, hear, hear.’ ‘That will cause you
to be in the height of bloom. Your nose will blossom; your eyes will
be bright as two burnt holes in a blanket; your head will swell till
no hat will fit it. These are facts, my friends; undeniable facts, my
kind friends.’ ‘Hear, hear, hear.’ ‘You will get so fat, you’ll take
up the pavement to walk. I believe, and I trust, that what I have said
will not convince you that teetotalism and coffeetotalism are the best
things ever invented. Sign the pledge. The pledge-book is here. You
must all pay a penny; and if you don’t keep up your payments, you will
be scratched. With these few remarks I now conclude my address to you,
hoping that every friend among you is so benevolent as to subscribe
a pot of beer. I shall be happy to drink it, to show you how awful a
thing it is not to become a teetotaller.’ Then they all rush forward to
sign the pledge, and they knock Clown over, and he tumbles Silly Billy
into the barrel up to his neck. Then we all sing
‘I likes a drop of good beer,
I likes a drop of good beer;
And hang their eyes if ever they tries
To rob a poor man of his beer.’
And that ends the meeting.
“I was in Greenwich fair, doing Silly Billy, when the celebrated
disturbance with the soldiers took place. I was at Smith and Webster’s
booth (Richardson’s that was), and our clown was Paul Petro. He had
been a bit of a fighting man. He was bending down for Silly Billy to
take a jump over him, and some of the soldiers ran up and took the
back. They knocked his back as they went over, and he got shirtey.
Then came a row. Four of them pitched into Paul, and he cries out for
help. The mob began to pelt the soldiers, and they called out to their
comrades to assist them. A regular confusion ensued. The soldiers
tumbled us about, and took off their belts. They cut Paul’s forehead
right open. I was Silly Billy, and I got a broomstick, and when one
of the soldiers gave me a lick over the face with his belt, I pitched
him over on the mob with my broomstick. I was tumbled down the steps
among the mob, and hang me if they didn’t pitch into me too! I got the
awfullest nose you ever see. There was I, in my long pinafore, a-wiping
up the blood, and both my eyes going as black as plums. I cut up a side
place, and then I sat down to try and put my nose to rights. Lord, how
I did look about for plaster! When I came back there was all the fair
a fighting. The fighting-men came out of their booths and let into the
soldiers, who was going about flourishing their belts and hitting
everybody. At last the police came; two of them was knocked down, and
sent back on stretchers: but at last, when a picket was sent for, all
the soldiers--there was about forty of them--were walked off. They got
from six to nine months’ imprisonment; and those that let into the
police, eighteen months. I never see such a sight. It was all up with
poor Silly Billy for that fair, for I had to wrap my face up in plaster
and flannel, and keep it so for a week.
“I shouldn’t think there were more than a dozen Silly Billys going
about at the present time; and out of them there ain’t above three
first-raters. I know nearly all of them. When fairs ain’t on they go
about the streets, either with schools of tumblers or serenaders; or
else they turn to singing at the concerts. To be a good Silly Billy, it
requires a man with heaps of funniment and plenty of talk. He must also
have a young-looking face, and the taller the man the better for it.
When I go out I always do my own gag, and I try to knock out something
new. I can take a candle, or a straw, or a piece of gingerbread, or
any mortal thing, and lecture on it. At fairs we make our talk rather
broad, to suit the audience.
“Our best sport is where a girl comes up on the parade, and stands
there before going inside--we have immense fun with her. I offer to
marry her, and so does Clown, and we quarrel as to who proposed to the
young woman first. I swear she’s my gal, and he does the same. Then we
appeal to her, and tell her what we’ll give her as presents. It makes
immense fun. The girls always take it in good part, and seem to enjoy
it as much as the mob in front. If we see that she is in any ways shy
we drop it, for it’s done for merriment, and not to insult; and we
always strive to amuse and not to abuse our friends.”