“Billy Barlow,” is another supposed comic character, that usually
accompanies either the street-dancers or acrobats in their
peregrinations. The dress consists of a cocked-hat and red feather,
a soldier’s coat (generally a sergeant’s with sash), white trowsers
with the legs tucked into Wellington boots, a large tin eye-glass, and
an old broken and ragged umbrella. The nose and cheeks are coloured
bright red with vermilion. The “comic business” consists of the songs
of the “Merry Month of May,” and “Billy Barlow,” together with a few
old conundrums and jokes, and sometimes (where the halfpence are very
plentiful) a “comic” dance. The following statement concerning this
peculiar means of obtaining a living I had from a man whom I had seen
performing in the streets, dressed up for the part, but who came to
me so thoroughly altered in appearance that I could hardly recognise
him. In plain clothes he had almost a respectable appearance, and was
remarkably clean and neat in his attire. Altogether, in his undress,
he might have been mistaken for a better kind of mechanic. There
was a humorous expression, however, about his mouth, and a tendency
to grimace, that told the professional buffoon. “I go about now as
Billy Barlow,” he said; “the character of Billy Barlow was originally
played at the races by a man who is dead. He was about ten years at
the street business, doing nothing else than Billy Barlow in the
public thoroughfares, and at fairs and races. He might have made a
fortune had he took care on it, sir; but he was a great drunkard, and
spent all he got in gin. He died seven years ago--where most of the
street-performers ends their days--in the workhouse. He was formerly
a potman at some public-house, and got discharged, and then took to
singing comic songs about the streets and fairs. The song of ‘Billy
Barlow’ (which was very popular then) was among the lot that he sung,
and that gave his name. He used to sing, too, the song of ‘I hope I
don’t intrude;’ and for that he dressed up as Paul Pry, which is the
reason of the old umbrella, the eye-glass, and the white trowsers
tucked into the boots, being part of the costume at present. Another
of his songs was the ‘Merry Month of May,’ or ‘Follow the Drum;’ and
for that he put on the soldier’s coat and cocked-hat and feather,
which we wears to this day. After this he was called ‘General Barlow.’
When he died, one or two took to the same kerachter, and they died
in the workhouse, like us all. Two months ago I thought I’d take to
it myself, as there was a vacancy in the purfession. I have been for
thirty years at the street business, off and on. I am fifty now. I was
a muffin and biscuit-baker by trade; but, like the rest on us, I got
fond of a roving life. My father was a tailor by trade, but took to
being a supernumerary at Covent Garden Theayter, where my uncle was
a performer, and when I was nine years old I played the part of the
child in ‘Pizarro,’ and after that I was one of the devils what danced
round my uncle in ‘Mother Goose.’ When I was fourteen year old my uncle
apprenticed me to the muffin business, and I stuck to it for five
years; but when I was out of my time I made up my mind to cut it, and
take to performing. First I played clown at a booth, for I had always a
taste for the comic after I had played the devil, and danced round my
uncle in the Covent-garden pantomime. Some time after that I took to
play the drum and pipes; and since then I have been chiefly performing
as musicianer to different street exhibitions. When business is bad in
the winter or wet weather, I make sweetmeats, and go about the streets
and sell them. I never made muffins since I left the business; you see,
I’ve no stove nor shop for that, and never had the means of raising
them. Sweetmeats takes little capital--toffy, brandy-balls, and Albert
rock isn’t expensive to get up. Besides, I’m known well among the
children in the streets, and they likes to patronise the purfession
for sweetmeats, even though they won’t give nothing while you’re a
performing; I’ve done much the same since I took to the Billy Barlow,
as I did before at the street business. We all share alike, and that’s
what I did as the drum and pipes. I never dress at home. My wife (I’m
a married man) knows the part I play. She came to see me once, and
laughed at me fit to bust. The landlord nor the fellow-lodgers where
I live--I have a room to myself--ain’t aware of what I do; I sneaks
my things out, and dresses at a public-house. It costs us a pot for
dressing and a pot for undressing. We has the use of the tap-room for
that. I’m like the rest of the world at home--or rather more serious,
maybe,--though, thank God, I don’t want for food; things is cheap
enough now; and if I can’t get a living at the buffoonery business,
why I tries sweetmeats, and between the two I do manage to grab on
somehow, and that’s more than many of my purfession can do. My pardner
(a street-dancer whom he brought with him) must either dance or starve;
and there’s plenty like him in the streets of London. I only know of
one other Barlow but me in the business, and he’s only taken to it
after me. Some jokes ain’t fit for ladies to listen to, but wot I says
is the best-approved jokes--such as has been fashionable for many
years, and can’t give no offence to no one. I say to the musician,
‘Well, master, can you tell me why are the Thames Tunnel and Hungerford
Suspension Bridge like two joints badly done?’ He’ll say, ‘No, Mr.
Barlow;’ and then I give him the answer: ‘Because one is over-done, and
the other is under-done.’ Then I raise my umbrella, saying, ‘I think
I’m purwided against the weather;’ and as the umbrella is all torn
and slit, it raises a laugh. Some days I get six shillings or seven
shillings as my share; sometimes not a quarter of the money. Perhaps
I may average full eighteen shillings a-week in the summer, or more;
but not a pound. In the winter, if there’s a subsistence, that’s all.
Joking is not natural to me, and I’m a steady man; it’s only in the
way of business, and I leave it on one side when I’ve got my private
apparel on. I never think of my public character if I can help it,
until I get my show-dress on, and I’m glad to get it off at night; and
then I think of my home and children, and I struggle hard for them, and
feel disgust oft enough at having been a tom-fool to street fools.”