“Jumbo” shipped. The Baroness Burdett-Coutts gives him his last bun.
Arrives safely at New York. A duty of £450 demanded. My awkward
encounter with the Customs officer. Fatal accident to “Jumbo.”
Something about the Aztecs. Their curious history. I go in for
theatrical management. I start with pantomime at the Metropolitan
Alcazar, Broadway. Deverna’s extraordinary rubber “properties.” The
topical hits greatly relished. The foolish penal code. Marriages in
Barnum’s captive balloon. My benefit and the misfortune that happened.
The gallery gives way and many people injured. In five minutes I lose
all my fortune.
At last the day arrived for the departure of the biggest passenger that
ever left the British shores. Practically, as a passenger, he had the
entire ship to himself (barring a few emigrants), for the _Assyrian
Monarch_ was a cargo ship and had been chartered for the purpose.
No monarch could have had greater honours paid him. The steamer was
dressed with flags and the boy crews of the training ships in the
Thames manned the yards as he went by. The Baroness Burdett-Coutts
and a party of friends bade him farewell on board the steamer and the
Baroness gave him his last bun. It was said that messages recording
the state of the illustrious animal’s health would be placed in india
rubber bags in lieu of bottles and dropped into the sea at intervals,
but whether this delicate attention was paid him I am unable to say,
as I did not travel in the _Assyrian Monarch_, for having to reach New
York some days before he did I went from Liverpool.
“Jumbo” arrived at Jersey city on April 9th and by night was lodged
in Madison Square Gardens little the worse for the voyage, save that
he had lost half a ton in weight owing to sea sickness. On the other
hand he had contracted a taste for whisky, presumably administered for
medicinal reasons. How much constituted a dose I am unable to say. The
Customs authorities claimed £450 for duty, which the owners refused to
pay on the ground that “Jumbo” had been imported for breeding purposes.
The question was referred to the Treasury and ultimately the claim was
abandoned. Again was “Jumbo” specially privileged. On the whole Barnum
and Bailey made a splendid bargain. What with buying him, booming him
in various ways and his transportation to America, he cost £3,000.
On the other hand we cleared this sum in New York alone and during
eighteen months we took 1,500 dollars per day--equivalent to £300.
That voyage of mine to America was marked by a comical incident which
forced me to pretend to be something Nature had not fitted me for. The
night before I left London for Liverpool I had a cable from Mr. Bailey
instructing me to bring over a prize dog as a pet for Mrs. Bailey,
she having no children. I brought the pug--“Punch” was its name--I
also purchased 24 pairs of tights, 24 pairs of theatrical boots and
a silver cornet for which I paid £16 at Chappell’s of Bond Street, the
cornet being for Mr. Robinson, who was the conductor of our band.
With all this paraphernalia I arrived at New York, and in due course
presented myself and my belongings at the Customs. The officer passed
everything excepting the silver cornet, at which he looked very
doubtfully.
“What have you got there?” was his question.
“Oh, that’s an implement of my trade,” said I, readily enough.
“Yes? And who are you?”
This was a poser, but I thought I was equal to it, so I explained that
I was a musical clown at Madison Square Gardens.
The officer smiled cordially.
“I’m real pleased to hear that,” said he. “Come into the office and
give us a few of your latest English tunes.”
He wasn’t contented with this (to me) monstrous proposal, but actually
invited some of his brother officials to form part of the audience!
What my consternation was like I cannot describe. I had never blown a
cornet in my life! However, I wasn’t going to be done, and plucking
up my courage I followed him into the office, brought out the cornet,
put the mouthpiece on it, and with all the assurance of a professional
musician asked the gentleman what he would like to hear.
“Play one of your own compositions,” said he.
I did. I composed it on the spot and made the most terrible noise that
ever issued from a cornet.
The official evidently was not impressed.
“Where’s the invoice for this?” he remarked drily.
I showed it to him--there was no help for it.
“Ah. That’ll cost you so many dollars extra. You’d better get out and
do a bit of practice.”
I never had such a take down and I felt I’d made a fool of myself.
When I took the cornet to Mr. Robinson he said, “What a beauty,” but on
my telling him of my adventure and what the instrument cost, he nearly
fell into a fit.
“My dear Whimmy,” said he laughing heartily, “I could have got the
thing cheaper in New York.”
“Jumbo’s” lost half-ton was soon made up. He began speedily to put on
flesh again and despite the fact that he had more exercise with the
show and less buns than at the Zoological Gardens, he became fat and
unwieldy and certainly lazy. All this led to his undoing. Some eighteen
months after he became an American citizen he was being removed from
one town to another, and during the journey was taken along the railway
track to avoid the crowds which were anxious to see him free, gratis
and for nothing. He was proceeding along a bend in the line when a big
locomotive engine was heard coming behind. The driver did not see the
big beast, and “Jumbo,” in total ignorance of his danger, could not be
induced to quicken his pace. The attendants did all they could to urge
him on, but his indolence had become too strong a habit. The locomotive
struck him violently on the side as he was leaving the metals, and
he fell down the incline, where he lay till his death, which occurred
some few hours after. Nothing could be done as he had received severe
internal injuries.
Passing from the very big to the very little I might say a word or two
about the Aztecs which Barnum was so anxious to have to add to the
attractions of his show. They were an ugly diminutive couple with dark
olive skins, gleaming eyes and big hook noses. I dare say some of my
older readers may remember them being quite a rage in London and the
provinces in the early ’sixties. They were brought from Mexico by one
Reaney, who represented them as being the last of their race, and as
also having royal blood in their veins. This may have been so, but I
have a suspicion that the story was a showman’s fake.
Royal or not, they proved a mine of wealth to their exhibitors, though
they hadn’t the slightest spark of interest in themselves personally.
They were hardly four feet high and exceedingly slightly built. With
their ringletted hair they looked more like dolls or wax figures from
a costumier’s window than human beings, and they passed their time in
smoking cigarettes and quarrelling in some kind of guttural jargon
which no one but themselves understood. They were a most unpleasant
looking couple, yet the British public clustered round them--the ladies
especially--anxious to shake them by the hand, though their palms were
generally moist and dirty and very disagreeable to the touch.
When I was commissioned to take them to America they had lost their
celebrity and had fallen very low indeed. After being exhibited in a
penny side booth during the last days of the Surrey Gardens, where they
were much more interested in their own snarlings than in the gaping
visitors, they became the property of a Mrs. Morris, who hired a shop
in the New Cut and turned it into a show, and there I found them.
I may be wrong, but to my mind, speaking as one who has passed a good
part of his life among shows and showmen, that the taste for freaks and
monstrosities once so marked a characteristic of the British sightseer
has disappeared. If so, it is hardly to be regretted.
After I finished my season with the Barnum and Bailey “Jumbo” season
in America I had saved a few thousand dollars, so I thought I would
go in for management in the theatrical business. I decided to produce
an English pantomime and made arrangements with Deverna, the finest
theatrical property artificer in America. Deverna was marvellous in
making, among other achievements, properties of rubber, and he made two
tramway horses--all of rubber, so that they could be stretched right
across the stage and if you let them go they would return to their
proper places. These two cost me a lot of money, but they were worth
it. You could knock them off their feet and they would right themselves
in the most startling fashion. I rented the Metropolitan Alcazar
Theatre, Broadway, New York, from a Mr. Wilson for three months. I
engaged a first-class company and gave them three weeks’ rehearsal and
set to work to produce the pantomime, the title of which was “The
Three Wishes.”
We opened on December 19th, to a big house. The English harlequinade
was a novelty to an American audience and I was curious to see how
it would go down. Everybody, I suppose, has his own idea of fun, and
where one person sees humour another sees nothing to laugh at, so I
had to take my chance. The result, however, was a success. _The New
York Herald_ was good enough to say of my efforts that they “provoked
considerable laughter.” It further observed that “Deverna’s splendid
pantomime and ballet, ‘Les Amours de Venus’ by M. Baptistan, were well
received. Many of the local scenes were recognised, and the hits at
the penal code and the peculiarities of horse car travel drew forth
sympathetic applause and hearty laughter.”
I may say in explanation of the “hits” at the penal code that the
latter was an extraordinary enactment, which could only have been
passed when the legislative authorities were in a temporary condition
of imbecility. It laid down all kinds of rules and regulations as to
what was proper and improper to do on Sunday, and a more fussy and
grandmotherly scheme for interfering with individual liberty was never
devised. As the notoriously prudish Comstock was the person appointed
to carry out the obnoxious law, it is pretty certain he took a keen
delight in pouncing upon offenders and exacting the fine laid down for
a breach of the code.
The Americans are certainly an extraordinary people, with their
constant craving for excitement, for bigness in everything, for
the almighty dollar, and for their extreme sentimentalism. They are
perpetually involving themselves in contradictions. At the very moment
when some were howling about Sabbatarian morality, others were crazy
over cock-fighting! Matches were being got up and fought in hosts
of places, not secretly but openly, and reports of the combats were
published in the papers without any apology. The incongruity did not
occur to me at the time, but it did afterwards, when I myself was
interested in the doings of game-cocks, as will be told in the proper
place.
So long as you can tickle the curiosity and vanity of the Americans and
make them fancy you’re going to show or give them something the rest of
the world has never seen or possessed, you’re on the right lines as a
showman. Barnum, the prince of the profession, discovered this as early
as 1842 when he exhibited General Tom Thumb, and he was always bringing
out something fresh and “unique” to the very end of his long career.
He was extraordinarily fertile in finding out new ways of pleasing the
American public and incidentally making money. One of his most original
notions he worked out while I was with him. He had a captive balloon
for flights, in which, of course, he made a charge. How he came to
extend this privilege into an extra special one I am unable to say, but
New York was one day startled by an announcement that marriages were
being “solemnised”--I suppose this is the proper word--daily in the
captive balloon!
And this turned out to be the case. Engaged couples were crazy to be
married up in a balloon and Barnum was quite ready to oblige them. The
balloon carried a clergyman at every trip and united the candidates in
the free and easy fashion which the American marriage law approves. Of
course, he had his fee and so did Barnum, who charged for the flight a
sum which, though high, was eagerly paid by the bridegroom.
What there was so attractive in this absurdity I am unable to say,
unless it enabled the couples so wedded to crow over those who had to
be contented with a commonplace church or chapel.
To return to the Alcazar pantomime. I of course was clown, and I had
splendid support from Charles Christie, pantaloon; J. F. Raymond,
harlequin; Thomas Watson, sprite; and Eva French, columbine. I needn’t
say there was any number of pretty girls in the ballet.
The run continued through the Christmas holidays to January 3rd,
which night I set apart for my benefit. By the irony of fate that
night proved to be most disastrous in my career--I lost a fortune
in less than five minutes. A tremendous crowd had assembled outside
the theatre, and I told my manager to open the doors. The house was
crowded to suffocation and just when we were going to begin there was a
stampede from the top gallery. It had dropped two feet with the weight
of the people. Women and children were shouting and crying--some with
arms and legs broken--but, thank God, there were no lives lost.
There was no performance that night, and subsequently the authorities
condemned the theatre. The accident had a sequel which was of grave
consequence to me. The people who had been injured brought actions
against me and they got absolutely everything I had, to the last dollar
I had saved for five years, and I was left penniless. There was only
one thing to do--return to England--so I borrowed 500 dollars from Mr.
Bailey and took boat for Liverpool.
[Illustration: The Royal Windsor Castle Programme]