variegated existence much more intimately connected with the stage than
at present--and on reaching this city I felt, of course, a great desire
to behold again the theatre, with all its brilliant fascinations--the
light, the music, the varied scenery comprising gardens, chambers,
cottages, mountains, "cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces,"
bar-rooms, churches, huts and hovels--to look again upon the glass
jewels, the tinselled robes of mimic royalty, the pasteboard banquets
and molasses wine, and all the glory, "pride, pomp and circumstance" and
humbug which I once "knew so well," "_et quorum magna pars fui_."
So, with my trusty friends, Damphool and Bull Dogge, I wended my way to
the Metropolitan Theatre No. 1, to see and hear the distinguished Mr.
Rantanrave Hellitisplit, the notorious American tragedian, in his great,
original, unapproachable, inconceivable, inexplicable, incomprehensible
part of "What a bore O, the last of the Vollypogs."
I had heard so much of this great actor in this particular part, that I
expected to behold nothing less than the "Eighth wonder of the world."
Opera glasses were continually levelled at us by people who, impelled
by a laudable curiosity, were anxious to see all that could _be_ seen.
(Damphool says, that when you see a _woman_ with one of these
implements, you may be sure she wants to be looked at--and called my
attention to the confirmatory fact, that all the ladies with the finest
busts, and the best developed forms, wore their dresses the lowest in
the neck, and sported the biggest opera glasses). (Bull Dogge asserts
that they were invented by the author of "Staring made Easy," and "A
Treatise on the Use of Globes.")
After a season of tramping by the intelligent audience, which seemed, by
its measured regularity, to intimate that they had learned the motion in
the treadmill, the bell jingled and the members of the orchestra
entered, one by one.
The audience endured the prolonged tuning of the instruments, conducted
in a masterly manner by the leader of the band, the music got "good
ready" for a fair start, and at the word "go" they went.
Could not critically analyse the uproar, but it seemed to be composed of
these elements: a predominance of drum and cymbals--a liberal allowance
of flute and horn--a spasmodic sprinkling of trombone--a small quantity
of oboe, and a great deal of fiddle. The tumult was directed by the
leader, who waved the fiddle over his head, jumped up and down upon his
seat, kicked up his heels, disarranged his shirt collar, threw his arms
wildly about, stamped, made faces, and conducted himself as if he was
dancing a frantic hornpipe for the gratification of the crazy whims of
an audience of Bedlamites.
At length the curtain went up--two men came on and said something, then
two others came on and did something--then the scene changed, and some
others came on and listened to a shabby-looking general, who seemed to
be their "magnus Apollo" and who certainly was very long-winded.
Nothing decisive, however, came to pass until the long-expected entrance
of the great Hellitisplit himself eventuated.
I must confess that I was awed by the terrific yet serene majesty of his
appearance. When I saw the tragic, codfishy expression of his eyes, I
was surprised; when I observed the flexibility of his capacious mouth,
opening and shutting, like a dying mud sucker, I was amazed. When my eye
turned to his fingers, which worked and clutched, as if feeling for
coppers in a dark closet, I was wonder-stricken--but when my attention
was called to the magnitude of his legs, I was fairly electrified with
admiration, and could not forbear asking Bull Dogge if those calves were
capable of locomotion.
What-a-bore-O, is supposed to be an Indian Chief, and although it is the
prevailing impression that Indians are beardless, the face of this
celebrated performer proved this opinion to be a physiological fallacy.
For upon his chin he wore a tuft of hair, a round black hirsute knob,
neither useful nor ornamental, but which looked as if somebody had hit
him in the face with a blacking-brush, and a piece had stuck to his
lower jaw.
The admiring audience, who had kicked up perfect young earthquake when
he came on, only ceased when he squared himself, put out his arm and
prepared to speak.
That voice! Ye Gods! that voice! It went through gradations that human
voice never before attempted, imitating by turns the horn of the City
Hall Gabriel, the shriek of the locomotive, the soft and gentle tones of
a forty-horse-power steam sawmill, the loving accents of the
scissor-grinder's wheel, the amorous tones of the charcoal-man, the
rumble of the omnibus, the cry of the driver appertaining
thereto--rising from the entrancing notes of the infuriated house-dog to
the terrific cry of the oyster vender--causing the "supes" to tremble in
their boots, making the fiddlers look around for some place of safety,
and moving the assembled multitude to echo back the roar, feebly, it is
true, but still with all their puny strength.
(Bull Dogge says he got that awful voice by eating pebble-stone
lunches, like the man in the book.)
Several times during the piece I was much affected--when he wound his
arms round his wife, stuck his head over her shoulder, and kissed the
back of her neck--when he made a grand exit, with three stamps, a hop, a
run, and two long straddles--when he talked grand about the thunder,
shook his fist at the man in the flies--when he killed the soldiers in
the council room, shouted for them to "come one and all," and then ran
away for fear they would--when he swore at the man who did not give him
his cue--when he knelt down and said grace over his dead boy, and then
got up and stuck his wife with the butcher-knife; but at no part of the
whole piece was I so impressed with his pathetic power, his transcendent
genius, as when he laid his hand solemnly on his stomach, and said "What
a bore O, cannot lie!" (Damphool asked, in a whisper, if Othello's
occupation was gone).
And at the death scene, when he was shot, I was again touched to the
heart; first he wabbled about like a top-heavy liberty pole in a high
wind; then he stuck out one leg, and wiggled it, after the manner of a
galvanic bull-frog; then sat down on the floor, opened his eyes and
looked around; then grappled an Indian on one side, clutched a soldier
on the other, struggled to his feet, staggered about like a drunken
Dutchman, made a rush forwards, then a leap sideways, stiffened out like
a frozen pig, collapsed like a wet dish-cloth, exerted himself till his
face was the color of an underdone beefsteak, then sank back into the
arms of the Indians, whispered to let him down easy, rolled up the
whites of his eyes, settled himself to die--concluded to have a parting
curse at the surrounding people, took a long swear, laid down, and with
a noise in his throat like castanets, a couple of vigorous kicks and a
feeble groan, gave up the ghost.
Bull Dogge asserted that he would resuscitate, brush the dust off his
legs (take some gin and sugar, and come out and make a speech), all of
which he did; the butcher boys in the gallery (Damphool says
Hellitisplit commenced life as a respectable butcher-boy, but has
degenerated into the man he is,) gave three cheers, Hellitisplit opened
his mouth four times, shut it thrice (he went off with it wide open),
and backed off with a grace which we may suppose would be exhibited by a
mudturtle on the tight-rope.
Damphool was in ecstacies--Bull Dogge asked me how I liked the "great
American," &c. I replied that I knew not which most to admire, his
euphonious voice, or his tremendous straddle, but that (notwithstanding
the late appropriation of the name by a rival show-shop), I was ready to
maintain with the butcher boys that there was but one Metropolitan
Theatre, and Hellitisplit is its profit.
XIX.
"Side Shows" of the City.
We are all aware that Chatham Street and the Bowery are the legitimate
abiding places of those benevolent Hebrews, whose zeal for the public
welfare, and pity for ragged humanity, lead them to continually offer
their valuable and undoubtedly durable articles of wearing apparel to
the needy public "below cost;" and the enviable philosophy with which
they bear the "alarming sacrifices" which must daily deplete their ample
fortunes, has often been the subject of wondering remark.
The question, what becomes of these philanthropic tradesmen after their
ultimate impoverishment, which of course must speedily supervene, is a
fruitful subject for the investigation of some inquisitive mind. The
charitable supposition is, that as soon as their pecuniary ruin is
effectually accomplished, they retire to the shades of private life,
happy in the consciousness of having done their little utmost to benefit
the human race; seeing in each well dressed man, a perambulating
monument of their beneficence, and in each ragged urchin, cause of
regret that their altered circumstances cannot afford him a better pair
of breeches.
But these Israelitish avenues before mentioned, are not only the
headquarters of these philanthropic gentlemen, but are the depot for
many other imitations of humanity, and curious specimens of human skill
unknown to the unobserving.
Here abound those impassive wooden Indians of some tribe extinct, save
in these civilized localities, who stand in the doors of seven by nine
tobacco-factories, offering in persevering silence perpetual bunches of
basswood cigars to the passer-by.
Here are plentifully sprinkled multitudes of three-cornered shops where
patient and eager women, so sharp and shrewd at a bargain, that he who
buys must have all his wits about him, offer for sale the most
incongruous assortment of second-hand property; from a last year's
newspaper to a complete library, from a pint-cup to a seventy ton yacht,
from a brass night-key to a steam-engine.
Here too, almost every other doorway is ornamented with daguerreotypes
of distinguished personages--negro-dancers duly equipped with banjo,
tamborine and clappers--militia officers rigged out in all the glory of
feathers and tinsel--supreme rulers of Know-Nothing Lodges, resplendent
in the full regalia of that astute and sapient order--and whole dozens
of pictures of the beauteous model artists who exercise their modest
calling in that vicinage; whose names are fanciful enough, but whose
physical embellishments are not always the ones commonly attributed to
the mythical characters they represent.
"Kitty Clover" with splay-feet and dirty silk tights as "Venus Rising
from the Sea," "Lilly Dale" cross-eyed and knock-kneed, as the "Greek
Slave"--"Kate Kearney," with eyes rolled up, mock-pearls in her hair, in
an attitude which must be exceedingly trying, as "Morning Prayer," or a
trio of clumsy squaw-like damsels with smirking faces and stumpy limbs,
as the "Three Graces."
Not only are all these works of art exhibited gratis by the
public-spirited habiters of Chatham Street and the Bowery, but they have
an infinity of other exhibitions, which cannot be classified as either
gratuitous, theatrical or amphitheatrical, to see which a fee is
demanded, moderate but peremptory, trifling but inevitable.
These consist principally of ferocious beasts captured by heroic men,
and brought from their native fastnesses to astonish the city people--of
deformed and monstrous beings which should be human, but whom nature has
sent into the world destitute of arms or legs, or vital organs, the lack
of which makes these curtailed individuals objects of wonder, of
mystery, and of three-cent speculation--and of various animals, human
and otherwise, trained to perform unheard of feats of strength, agility,
or juggling sleight.
The whereabouts of these interesting prodigies is made known by huge
paintings on nobody-knows-how-many square yards of canvass; and
generally by a decrepit hurdy-gurdy played in a masterly manner by the
enterprising proprietor, who occasionally varies his performance by
reciting at the top of his voice the leading attractions of his
exhibitions, and extending to the bystanders a general invitation to
walk in, and get their money's worth.
Reader, whose dainty musical and dramatic tastes, our theatrical and
operatic managers fail to gratify; who have laughed your fill at
Burton, and at Forrester; who have tired of Vestvali, Steffanone,
D'Ormy, and the rest; who have grown sick of Badiali, impatient of
Brignoli, and tired of both; who have ceased to interest yourself in the
"Happy Family" either at the Academy of Music or at Barnam's; whose
sickened ear is fatigued with the burnt-cork lyrics of Christy, Buckley,
and their sooty accomplices in questionable harmonies; you, who know
every inch in the circle of fashionable amusement, and long for some
novelty to break the monotony of the tedious track; pray discard the
Shanghae coat, don a more sensible and less noticeable garb, step from
the Broadway sphere to the Bowery precincts, and there look upon wonders
hitherto unknown, and which will heartily astonish your bewildered
optics.
Let us begin with the Anacondas, and the "only living Rhinoceros;" let
me speak, and you hold your breath, and marvel.
Pause ere you enter the apartment containing these prodigies of Natural
History--these dread-inspiring denizens of the mighty rivers and
impenetrable morasses of the tropics, examine carefully the gorgeous
painting which decks the outside of the building. How majestic in
design! how masterly in the execution! Criticism is silent, and we can
only speak to commend.
Observe the brilliancy of the coloring; the vivid red and yellow spots
upon the serpents, which wind their powerful folds about that noble
charger--(you thought it was a windmill? No, Sir! I have inspected it
carefully, and I am positive it is intended for a horse.)
See with what an air of stolid placidity, and sleepy complacency, his
rider, the gallant Indian Chief (you took him for the "Fat Boy"?--the
mistake is perhaps excusable, but it is _not_ the "Fat Boy,") draws his
arrow to the head to pierce the slimy monster; (arrow? you imagined it a
fish pole? wrong, my friend, palpably wrong, the instrument may suggest
fish-pole, but it is undoubtedly meant for arrow;) whose tail, the
artist, with a noble disregard of the principles of perspective which
stamps him as an original genius, has caused to rest upon a mountain
twenty miles in the distance.
Notice how the other monstrous reptile has twined himself in the
branches of the palm-tree--(it looks like a hickory-broom. No, sir! "it
is no such thing"--it is most emphatically a tree--) and with his fiery
tongue thrust from his gaping jaws, (of course it's a tongue, and you
need not assert that it resembles a barber's pole with the end split up,
for it doesn't,) is about to make a frightful descent upon the other
steed. (_Another_ horse? Yes, sir! another horse, although you assert it
to be meant for a cider barrel on a three-legged stool.)
Admire the elegant yet terrible proportions of the mighty Rhinoceros, as
he stalks majestically through the tall jungle-grass (you thought that
was a terrier dog looking for rats in a barn-yard, did you? Well, my
friend, the resemblance certainly is striking, but do not disparage the
artist, who is undoubtedly much more familiar with terrier dogs than
with the other brutes, and don't find fault with the Rhinoceros because
he isn't bigger than a dog, for you perceive that if he had been
represented the proper size he would have covered up the snakes, hidden
the Indian from our sight, and rendered the landscape invisible.)
We pay our money and go inside. What, though, upon seeking the
realization of this promise of novelty, instead of the living rhinoceros
we see only the dried and shrivelled skin of what was probably once a
hog? and the ferocious reptiles of fabulous size shrink into a couple
of exaggerated angleworms?
Let us not find fault with the showman who is only carrying on a popular
business on too small a scale to be honest. He should increase his stock
of curious swindles, tell bigger stories and more of them, humbug a
hundred people where now he swindles one, and so make his business
honest and respectable.
Our attention is next claimed by the man without any arms, who is
advertised to possess tremendous strength, and can do more things with
his feet than most people can with their hands; who can draw, paint,
load a gun, play the piano, violin, and accordeon, cut likenesses, put
on a clean collar, shave himself, tell fortunes, set type, and saw wood.
Do not grumble if, instead of an admirable Crichton, whose
accomplishments are to provoke your envy, you see only a miserable
cripple, necessitated by poverty and inability to work, to make an
exhibition of his deformity, and the poor devices to which he is driven,
to supply, in some slight degree, the absence of his limbs.
Don't forget to see the "Living Skeleton," who has seen two score years,
only weighs twenty ounces, and is so thin that when he is undressed he
is invisible to the naked eye.
Visit also the dancing bears, the performing dogs, the wax figures, the
mineralogical, geological, and conchological collections; see the female
minstrels; the alligators, who have devoured in their native country an
army of men, a multitude of women, and a myriad of nigger pickaninnies;
see the magician who turns chickens into mugs of ale, and transmutes
iron soup kettles into purest gold; the girl who dances a hornpipe on a
drum-head, amongst a dozen eggs and never breaks any; the man who
swallows a sword for his dinner, and lunches daily on jack-knives and
gimlets; the boy who can tie his legs in a bow-knot on the back of his
neck.
Go to see the individual who balances a ladder on the end of his nose,
and his canine friend, who courageously ascends to the top thereof, and
barks defiance to the world,--the juggler who tosses the balls and
butcher knives,--the Chinaman who throws flip flaps by the dozen, and
makes a human cart-wheel of himself in the air, between heaven and
earth, like Mahomet's coffin;--the learned Canary-birds which draw
water, fire off guns, ring bells, and cut up all sorts of unnatural
antics to earn their daily cuttlefish bone and loaf sugar; take a
regular round of Bowery three cent amusements, glut your taste for
novelty, take the edge off your curiosity, laugh at the bombastic
humbugs enough to last you for a month; and then when the conglomeration
of unaccustomed sights and sounds has tired out your aristocratic
senses, go back to the Fifth Avenue world again, convinced that all the
fun of the city is not located in Broadway or Chambers Street, or all
the humbug concentrated between the City Hall Square and Maiden Lane.
XX.
New Year's Day in New York.
The last New Year's day previous to the one herein spoken of, was passed
by the subscriber on board a Mississippi steamboat--said boat being fast
aground on a sand-bar--provisions all gone--the captain, steward, and
one of the bar-keepers being occupied playing "poker" with the
passengers at one end of the boat, while the more piously disposed were
listening to the drawling tones of a nautical preacher, who was
discoursing second-hand sanctimony at the other--crew all on a "bender"
in the engine room, firemen all drunk on the boiler deck, and every body
generally enjoying themselves.
Made no calls, myself, except at the bar, where I wished myself so many
happy New Years, and so many compliments of the season, that I slept
that night on a pile of cotton-wood, and when I attained my state-room,
next day, I found each berth occupied by a colored fireman, both with
their boots on; one with my Sunday coat under his head for a pillow, his
hair decorated with sundry lumps of stone-coal, and his red flannel
shirt ornamented with the contents of a tar-bucket, and the carpenter's
glue-pot.
Since that eventful time, I have become a sojourner in town, and on the
approach of New Year's, had felicitated myself on the prospect of seeing
how New Yorkers celebrate this universal holiday.
Intended to call on my friends, and hoped, as the number of my feminine
acquaintances in this immediate vicinity is small, to get through in
time to spend the afternoon at my new boarding-house, where Mrs. Griggs,
my landlady, and her two daughters were to receive calls, and who had
invited me to be present and see "the elephant" as far as the
proceedings of the day should disclose to an unsophisticated eye, his
mighty and magnificent proportions.
Early in the morning, dyed my incipient but dilatory moustache into
visibility, dressed myself as fashionably as the resources of my limited
wardrobe would permit, and, attended by my fast friend Sandie, started
on my journey, intending to "fetch up" eventually at my boarding-house,
"stopping at all the intermediate posts by the way."
A word about my friend Sandie. I have become much attached to him, from
his strong resemblance in habits to the "fat boy" of the Pickwick
papers.
_He sleeps every where._
In the omnibus, on the ferry-boat, in the store, at the Post-Office, in
church, at the theatre, and even while walking along Broadway.
I have known him stop twenty-one stages in the course of an afternoon's
walk by nodding at the drivers while he was enjoying a peripatetic nap.
The first time I saw him I was the humble instrument of preserving his
valuable existence. He had started to go to the Post-Office to mail an
important letter, but had fallen asleep in Nassau street, and the
bill-stickers had nearly overlaid him with show-bills, announcing that
at the Bowery Theatre would be played the drama of the "Seven Sleepers,"
to be followed by the song "We're all a Nodding," the whole to conclude
with the farce "Rip Van Winkle."
In fact, he sleeps every where, except at table.
Open his sleepy eyes to the prospect of something good to eat, and his
wakefulness will be insured until the uttermost morsel is entombed in
those regions of unknown capacity to which he diurnally sends such
astonishing quantities of provisions.
His internal dimensions have long been a favorite theme of speculation
to his friends, but, alas! the problem must ever set at defiance all the
ordinary rules of mensuration.
He has occasional fits of spasmodic piety, and then tries to read his
Bible, and invariably goes to sleep and lets the book fall into the
ashes--and I verily believe, that though his eternal salvation depended
upon his reading three chapters of the Gospel without having a fit of
somnambulism, he would go fast asleep before he had accomplished three
verses.
Put ourselves into our new clothes and started on our tour. Went to the
Smiths, Thompsons, Tompkins, Greens, Browns, Wiggins, Robinsons, &c.; in
all these places there was the same performance, without change of
programme. I give the formula--
Enter--speak to the lady of the house--"happy New Year,"
compliments--happy returns--take a glass of wine with the
ladies--another of brandy or punch with the father--nibble a little
cake--exit--to be repeated "_ad libitum_."
At Jones' they had, on a side-table, a plate under a placard labelled
"for the poor"--and every visitor was expected to drop in a
contribution.
Some malicious person has recollected that the Joneses did the same
thing last year, and his inconvenient and libellous memory has also
recalled the circumstance that soon after New Year's, the two daughters
of Jones had new silk dresses, and Mrs. J. rejoiced in a new cloak and
hat of the richest style, and he says that Brogley, the broker, told him
that on the 3rd of January last, Jones got some "tens" and "twenties" of
him in exchange for small money, and made him give him two per cent.
over because so much of it was silver change--and, in fact, he
insinuates that as the money was to be "for the poor," Jones voted
himself as poor as any body, and kept the proceeds--and rumor whispers
that the Joneses won't have half so many calls this year as last,
because their friends object to being taxed to pay their milliners'
bills.
At Snooks' we found the doors closed, and a basket hung outside, in
which to deposit cards--thought of the foundling hospital, &c.