Lions and Lion-tamers—Manchester Jack—Van Amburgh—Carter’s Feats—What is
a Tiger?—Lion-driving and Tiger-fighting—Van Amburgh and the Duke of
Wellington—Vaulting Competition between Price and North—Burning of
the Amphitheatre—Death of Ducrow—Equestrian Performances at the
Surrey Theatre—Travelling Circuses—Wells and Miller—Thomas Cooke—Van
Amburgh—Edwin Hughes—William Batty—Pablo Fanque.
He must have been a bold man who first undertook to tame and train a
lion. It has been jocosely remarked that he must have been a courageous
man who first ventured to eat an oyster; but a very different degree of
courage must have been possessed by the man who first ventured upon
familiarities with the tawny monarch of the African forests. The
distinction is attributed to Hanno, the Carthaginian general; but the
first public exhibition of trained lions was given in the Amphitheatre
at Rome, where Mark Antony, seated in a car, with a lady by his side,
drove a pair of lions round the arena. But we must come down to modern
times for the first exhibition of tamed and trained lions and tigers in
this country. Van Amburgh is generally credited with the distinction of
having been the first lion-tamer of modern times; but I remember seeing,
when a very small boy, the keeper of the lions in Wombwell’s menagerie
enter the cage of a fine old lion, Nero; and sit on the animal’s back,
open his mouth, &c. As this was more than forty years ago, the performer
must have been ‘Manchester Jack,’ who was enacting the part of ‘lion
king’ in Wombwell’s menagerie when Van Amburgh, an American of Dutch
descent, arrived in England with his trained lions, tigers, and
leopards.
It has been said that arrangements were made for a trial of skill and
daring between the American and Manchester Jack, and that it was to have
taken place at Southampton, but fell through in consequence of Van
Amburgh showing the white feather. The story seems improbable, for Van
Amburgh’s daring in his performances has never been exceeded.
‘Were you ever afraid?’ the Duke of Wellington once asked him.
‘The first time I am afraid, your Grace,’ replied the lion-tamer, ‘or
that I fancy my pupils are no longer afraid of me, I shall retire from
the wild beast line.’
After having been killed in the newspapers half a dozen times, his back
broken twice, and his head once bitten off by a tiger, Van did retire,
undevoured, and died quietly in his bed about five years ago. Manchester
Jack also retired from the profession, and kept an inn at Taunton for
many years afterwards, dying in 1865.
Van Amburgh and his trained animals were engaged by Ducrow and West
during the season of 1838 at Astley’s, and proved a great attraction.
Then came Carter, another lion-tamer, who appeared with his animals, in
a drama specially written for them, as Afghar, a lion-tamer, in which
part he drove a lion in harness and maintained a mimic fight with an
animal called in the bills a tiger. I have not been able to ascertain
whether this animal was really a tiger, a point upon which doubt arises
from the fact of Carter’s collection being announced as containing a
fine ‘Brazilian tiger,’ and from the application of the name by
travellers and colonists imperfectly acquainted with zoology to every
feline animal which is larger than a cat, and does not possess a mane.
The beautiful striped animal properly called a tiger has very
circumscribed range, being found only in the hot regions of Asia, south
of the Himalayan mountains and east of the Indus. But the South African
colonists call the leopard a tiger, and many travellers in the tropical
regions of America speak of the jaguar by that name. Carter’s ‘Brazilian
tiger’ was, of course, a jaguar; but his collection _may_ have contained
a veritable tiger, and it _may_ have been the latter animal that he
engaged in mimic conflict with on the stage. Tigers are not usually
sufficiently docile to be trusted in such performances; but the
possibility of their being so trained is proved by the fact that I saw a
struggle between a man and a tiger, about five and thirty years ago, in
a small show pitched on a piece of waste ground at Norwood. It was a
rather tame affair, however, and, coupled with the fact that the tiger
was the sole representative of the ‘group of trained animals’ announced
in the bills, caused my boyish disappointment to vent itself, as I
passed out of the show, in a remark on the discrepancy between the
promise and the performance. ‘What can you expect for a penny?’ was the
rejoinder of the shabby woman who acted as money-taker; and, though I
felt that I ought to have seen at least another animal, I passed on,
silently wondering how a tiger and several human beings could be fed
upon the scanty receipts of a little penny show; for there was a drama
produced, the hero of which was an English traveller, who underwent
harrowing adventures among savages and wild beasts in Central Africa.
The ex-lion king, whose reminiscences and experiences were recorded
three years ago in a London morning journal, computes the number of
lions in this country at about fifty; but this seems erroneous, as there
were ten in Fairgrieve’s menagerie, and probably as many in each of the
other two shows into which Wombwell’s collection was divided at his
death, five in Manders’s, and five attached to Sanger’s circus, besides
those in Hilton’s, Day’s, and other menageries, Bell and Myers’s circus,
and the Zoological Gardens of London, Bristol, and Manchester. The
greater number of them have been bred in cages. These are cheaper than
the imported lions, but seldom attain so large a size as the latter.
Jamrach, of Ratcliffe Highway, is the agent through whom most of the
imported lions are procured. He has agents abroad, and also buys from
captains and stewards of ships, who sometimes bring home wild animals as
a commercial speculation. As I lay claim to no practical knowledge of
the business of lion-taming and lion-training, I quote here what the
‘ex-lion king’ said on the subject two years ago, in preference to
writing at random about it.
‘The lion-tamer,’ we are told, ‘likes to get his beasts as young as he
can, because then they are more easily brought into order, although, no
doubt, there are many instances where a full-grown forest lion has been
trained to high perfection. The lion-tamer begins by taking the feeding
of them into his own hands, and so gets them to know him. He commences
feeding them from the outside of the den, then ventures inside to one at
a time, always carefully keeping his face to the animal, and avoiding
any violence, which is a mistake whenever it can be avoided, as it
rouses the dormant devil in the beasts. Getting to handle the lion, the
tamer begins by stroking him down the back, gradually working up to the
head, which he begins to scratch, and the lion, which, like a cat, likes
friction, begins to rub his head against the hand. When this familiarity
is well established, a board is handed in to the trainer, which he
places across the den, and teaches the lion to jump over it, using a
whip with a thong, but not for the purpose of punishment. Gradually this
board is heightened, the lion jumping over it at every stage; and then
come the hoops, &c., held on the top of the board to quicken the beast’s
understanding. To teach the animal to jump over the trainer, the latter
stoops alongside the board, so that when the lion clears one he clears
the other, and half a dozen lessons are ordinarily about sufficient to
teach this. To get a lion to lie down, and allow the tamer to stand on
him, is more difficult. It is done by flicking the beast over the back
with a small tickling whip, and at the same time pressing him down with
one hand. By raising his head, and taking hold of the nostril with the
right hand, and the under lip and lower jaw with the left, the lion, by
this pressure on the nostril and lip, loses greatly the power of his
jaws, so that a man can pull them open, and put his head inside the
beast’s mouth, the feat with which Van Amburgh’s name was so much
associated. The only danger is, lest the animal should raise one of its
fore-paws, and stick his talons in; and if he does, the tamer must stand
fast for his life till he has shifted the paw.’
This is a fool-hardy feat, in which a considerable amount of risk is
incurred, without exhibiting any intelligence, grace, or docility on the
part of the lion. But the concluding bit of advice is noteworthy, as
lions and tigers, like cats, sometimes extend their claws without
intending any mischief, and many injuries from them might be prevented
by presence of mind on the part of the exhibitor.
Stickney re-appeared at Astley’s during the season of Van Amburgh and
Carter, and the vaulting performances of Price were supplemented by the
engagement of an American vaulter named North. Between these two famous
vaulters a competition took place in the circle, when the unprecedented
number of one hundred and twenty somersaults were turned by each man.
Ducrow’s stud appeared, for a short season, in the summer of 1841, at
Vauxhall Gardens, returning to the Amphitheatre for the winter. His last
production was the _Dumb Man of Manchester_, and the performance of the
principal character in that drama was one of the most successful efforts
as a pantomimist which he ever exhibited. The conflagration by which the
Amphitheatre was destroyed for the third time gave such a shock to his
system that mental aberration and physical paralysis resulted, and he
died on the 27th of January 1842. His remains were interred in Kensal
Green cemetery, where the monument erected to his memory is one of the
most remarkable objects which arrest the eye of the visitor.
The performers at Astley’s, biped and quadruped, found a temporary
refuge, after the conflagration, at the Surrey theatre, which, having
been originally an amphitheatre, admitted of ready adaptation to circus
requirements. The dramatic company being retained, a melo-drama was
first presented, and then the orchestra and a portion of the benches of
the pit were removed, and a ring formed in its place. During the
performance of the scenes in the circle the orchestra and the displaced
spectators occupied seats amphitheatrically arranged on the stage. The
original status was then restored and the performances concluded with
the popular hippodramatic spectacle of _Mazeppa_.
As the taste for equestrian and acrobatic performances became more
widely diffused, amphitheatres were erected at Liverpool by Copeland,
and at Bristol, Birmingham, and Sheffield by James Ryan; while the
travelling circuses increased yearly in number and repute. Samwell’s was
still travelling, but the rapid increase of wealth and population in the
northern towns, consequent upon the development of manufactures, had
induced its proprietor to leave the southern circuit, and pitch his show
near the great industrial hives of Yorkshire and Lancashire.
New names are presented to us in Wells and Miller, in whose circus, then
located at Wakefield, Wallett first assumed the distinctive designation
of ‘the Shakspearian Jester.’ Tom Barry, afterwards so well known in
connection with Astley’s, was then clowning in Samwell’s circus. Wells
and Miller soon dissolved their partnership, and the former started a
separate concern, opening a very fine circus at Dewsbury.
Thomas Cooke, after a professional tour in the United States, returned
to England and opened at Hull, afterwards visiting the principal towns
in the northern and midland counties. Van Amburgh also, obtaining a
partner with capital, started a circus with his performing lions,
tigers, and leopards as an adjunct of no inconsiderable attractiveness.
One of John Clarke’s daughters was his principal _equestrienne_, and he
engaged Wallett as clown.
Edwin Hughes brought out one of the largest establishments of the kind
which, at that time, had ever been seen; but he could not make headway
against William Batty, who now came into notice, and to ample means
joined the indomitable energy and enterprise of Astley and Ducrow. We
find Batty in 1836 at Nottingham, with a company which included Pablo
Fanque, a negro rope-dancer, whose real name was William Darby; Powell
and Polaski, for principal equestrians; Mulligan, as head vaulter; and
Dewhurst, as chief clown, with capacities for every branch of the
profession, being an admirable vaulter and acrobat, and a good rider.
The stud was as good as the company, and included a pair of zebras, a
wild ass, and an elephant, all of which, with a contempt of local
colouring worthy of Ducrow, Batty introduced on the stage in _Mazeppa_!
Batty did not limit his movements to any part of the United Kingdom. In
1838 we find him at Newcastle and Edinburgh, and in 1840 at Portsmouth
and Southampton. Some changes had been made in the company, of which
James Newsome, now proprietor of one of the best of the provincial
circuses, Lavater Lee, the vaulter, and Plége, the French rope-dancer,
were prominent members. At the time when Astley’s was burnt for the
third time, Batty’s circus was in Dublin, where a good stroke of
business had been done. On hearing of the conflagration, Batty started
for London by the next steamer, made arrangements for the immediate
rebuilding of the Amphitheatre, and returned to Dublin. The receipts
were beginning to decline there, and, pending the completion of the new
Amphitheatre in Westminster Road, Batty resolved to construct a
temporary circus at Oxford. To that city he accordingly proceeded,
leaving the circus under the management of Wallett, who, after
travelling for several years with Cooke, and two years with Van Amburgh,
had joined Batty in Dublin. On the termination of the season in the
Irish capital, Wallett took the company and the stud to Liverpool, and,
as the circus at Oxford was not yet ready for opening, arranged with
Copeland for twelve nights at the Amphitheatre. This engagement, being
made without the knowledge and sanction of Batty, caused a warm dispute
between the latter and Wallett, which did not, however, have the
immediate effect of terminating the clown’s engagement.
Wallett tells a humorous story of Pablo Fanque, with whom he became
intimately acquainted, and who used to fish in the Isis. The black was a
very successful angler, and would pull the golden chub, the silvery
roach, and the bearded barbel out of the river by the dozen when Oxonian
disciples of Walton could not get a nibble. One intelligent
undergraduate came to the conclusion that the circus man’s success must
be due to his dusky complexion, and astonished his brothers of the rod
by appearing one morning on the bank of the stream with a face
suggestive of the surmise that he must have been playing Othello or
Zanga at some private theatricals the preceding night, and have gone to
bed, as Thornton—well known in the annals of provincial theatres at the
beginning of the present century—once did, without wiping the black off.
The Oxonian caught no more fish, however, than he had done before.
While Batty’s circus was still at Oxford, Pablo Fanque terminated his
engagement, and started a circus on his own account. Wallett, always a
rolling stone, joined him, and they proceeded to the north together,
opening at Wakefield, where, for the present, we must leave them.