Volume 3 — I.—STREET EXHIBITORS. (continued 7)

“I’ve done Silly Billy for Richardson’s, and near every booth of consequence. The general wages is from 5s. to 7s. 6d. 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 6d., some 1s. and 2s. 6d. We call those parties ‘prosses.’ I have had such a thing as 5s. 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 25s. 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 The tumblers like the Silly Billy, because the dress is attractive; but they are getting out of date now, since the grotesque clown is so much in the street.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 20s. 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:

“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:

“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:

“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:

‘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.’

‘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

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.”

Billy Barlow.

“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.”

Strolling Actors.

What are called strolling actors are those who go about the country and play at the various fairs and towns. As long as they are acting in a booth they are called canvas actors; but supposing they stop in a town a few days after a fair, or build up in a town where there is no fair, that constitutes what is termed private business.

“We call strolling acting ‘mumming,’ and the actors ‘mummers.’ All spouting is mumming. A strolling actor is supposed to know something of everything. He doesn’t always get a part given to him to learn, but he’s more often told what character he’s to take, and what he’s to do, and he’s supposed to be able to find words capable of illustrating the character; in fact, he has to ‘gag,’ that is, make up words.

“When old Richardson was alive, he used to make the actors study their parts regularly; and there’s Thorne and Bennett’s, and Douglas’s, and other large travelling concerns, that do so at the present time; but where there’s one that does, there’s ten that don’t. I was never in one that did, not to study the parts, and I have been mumming, on and off, these ten years.

“There’s very few penny gaffs in London where they speak; in fact, I only know one where they do. It ain’t allowed by law, and the police are uncommon sewere. They generally play ballets and dumb acting, singing and dancing, and such-like.

“I never heard of such a thing as a canvas theatre being prosecuted for having speaking plays performed, so long as a fair is going on, but if it builds at other times I have known the mayor to object to it, and order the company away. When we go to pitch in a town, we always, if it’s a quiet one, ask permission of the mayor to let us build.

“The mummers have got a slang of their own, which parties connected with the perfession generally use. It is called ‘mummers’ slang,’ and I have been told that it’s a compound of broken Italian and French. Some of the Romanee is also mixed up with it. This, for instance, is the slang for ‘Give me a glass of beer,’—‘Your nabs sparkle my nabs,’ ‘a drop of beware.’ ‘I have got no money’ is, ‘My nabs has nanti dinali.’ I’ll give you a few sentences.

“‘Parni’ is rain; and ‘toba’ is ground.

“‘Nanti numgare’ is—No food.

“‘Nanti fogare’ is—No tobacco.

“‘Is his nabs a bona pross?’—Is he good for something to drink?

“‘Nanti, his nabs is a keteva homer’—No, he’s a bad sort.

“‘The casa will parker our nabs multi’ means,—This house will tumble down.

“‘Vada the glaze’ is—Look at the window.

“These are nearly all the mummers’ slang words we use; but they apply to different meanings. We call breakfast, dinner, tea, supper, all of them ‘numgare;’ and all beer, brandy, water, or soup, are ‘beware.’ We call everybody ‘his nabs,’ or ‘her nabs.’ I went among the penny-ice men, who are Italian chaps, and I found that they were speaking a lot of mummers’ slang. It is a good deal Italian. We think it must have originated from Italians who went about doing pantomimes.

“Now, the way we count money is nearly all of it Italian; from one farthing up to a shilling is this:—

“‘Patina, nadsa, oni soldi, duey soldi, tray soldi, quatro soldi, chinqui soldi, say soldi, seter soldi, otter soldi, novra soldi, deshra soldi, lettra soldi, and a biouk.’ A half-crown is a ‘metsa carroon;’ a ‘carroon’ is a crown; ‘metsa punta’ is half-a-sovereign; a ‘punta’ is a pound. Even with these few words, by mixing them up with a few English ones, we can talk away as fast as if we was using our own language.

“Mumming at fairs is harder than private business, because you have to perform so many times. You only wear one dress, and all the actor is expected to do is to stand up to the dances outside and act in. He’ll have to dance perhaps sixteen quadrilles in the course of the day, and act about as often inside. The company generally work in shares, or if they pay by the day, it’s about four or five shillings a-day. When you go to get engaged, the first question is, ‘What can you do?’ and the next, ‘Do you find your own properties, such as russet boots, your dress, hat and feathers, &c.?’ Of course they like your dress the better if it’s a showy one; and it don’t much matter about its corresponding with the piece. For instance, Henry the Second, in ‘Fair Rosamond,’ always comes on with a cavalier’s dress, and nobody notices the difference of costume. In fact, the same dresses are used over and over again for the same pieces. The general dress for the ladies is a velvet skirt with a satin stomacher, with a gold band round the waist and a pearl band on the forehead. They, too, wear the same dresses for all the pieces. A regular fair show has only a small compass of dresses, for they only goes to the same places once in a-year, and of course their costumes ain’t remembered.

“The principal fair pieces are ‘Blue Beard,’ ‘Robert, duke of Normandy,’ and ‘Fair Rosamond, or the Bowers of Woodstock.’ I recollect once they played ‘Maria Martin,’ at a fair, in a company I was with, and we played that in cavalier costume; and so we did ‘The Murder at Stanfield Hall,’ Rush’s affair, in dresses of the time of Charles the Second.

“An actor’s share will average for a fair at five shillings a-day, if the fair is anything at all. When we don’t work we don’t get paid, so that if we only do one fair a-week, that’s fifteen shillings, unless we stop to do a day or two private business after the fair.

“‘Fair Rosamond’ isn’t so good a piece as ‘Blue Beard,’ for that’s a great fair piece, and a never-failing draw. Five years ago I was with a company—Star and Lewis were the acting managers. Then ‘Blue Beard’ was our favourite piece, and we played it five fairs out of six. ‘Fair Rosamond’ is too sentimental. They like a comedy man, and the one in ‘Fair Rosamond’ isn’t nothing. They like the secret-chamber scene in ‘Blue Beard.’ It’s generally done by the scene rolling up and discovering another, with skeletons painted on the back, and blue fire. We always carried that scene with us wherever we went, and for the other pieces the same scenes did. At Star’s, our scenes were somewhat about ten feet wide and eight feet high. They all rolled up, and there were generally about four in working order, with the drop curtain, which made five.

“You may put the price of a good fair theatrical booth down at from fifty pounds to two hundred and fifty pounds. There’s some of them more expensive still. For instance, the paintings alone on the front of Douglas’s Shakesperian theatre, must have cost seventy pounds; and his dress must have cost a deal, for he’s got a private theatre at Bolton, and he works them there as well as at fairs.

“The ‘Bottle Imp’ is a very effective fair piece. It opens with a scene of Venice, and Willebald and Albert, which is the comedy man and the juvenile. The comic man’s principal line is, ‘I’ll tell your mother,’ every time Albert wants to go and see his sweetheart, or if he’s doing anything that he thinks improper. In the first act Albert goes to his sweetheart’s house, and the father consents to their union, provided he can gain so many ducats. Albert then finds out a stranger, who is Nicolo, who asks him to gamble with him at dice: Albert says he is poor. Nicolo says he once was poor, but now he has great wealth. He then tells Albert, that if he likes he can be rich too. He says, ‘Have you not heard of imps and bottle imps?’ ‘Stuff!’ says Albert; ‘me, indeed! a poor artist; I have heard of such things, but I heed them not.’ ‘But, boy,’ says Nicolo, ‘I have that in my possession will make you rich indeed; a drop of the elixir in this bottle, rubbed on the outside, will give you all you require; and if ever you wish to part with it, you must sell it for less than you gave.’ He gives three ducats for it, and as he gives the money the demon laughs from the side, ‘Ha! ha! ha! mine, mine!’ Albert looks amazed. Nicolo says, ‘Ah, youth! may you know more happiness than I have whilst I had that in my possession:’ and then he goes off. Albert then tries the power of the bottle. He says, ‘What, ho! I wish for wine,’ and it’s shoved on from the side. As he is drinking, Willebald exclaims, ‘O dear, O dear! I’ve been looking for my master. O that I were only safe back again in Threadneedle-street! I’ll never go hunting pretty girls again. Oh, won’t I tell his mother!’ ‘How now, caitiff!—Leave me!’ says Albert. ‘All right,’ says Willebald; ‘I’ll leave you—won’t I tell your mother!’

“When Willebald goes, Albert wishes for sleep, and the Bottle Imp replies, ‘All your wishes shall be gratified, excepting one. Sleep you cannot have while I am in your possession.’ The demon then seizes him by the throat, and Albert falls on stage, demon exulting over him. Enter Willebald, who, seeing the demon, cries, ‘Murder! murder! Oh, won’t I tell their mothers!’ and that ends the first act.

“In the second and last act, Albert gives Willebald instructions to sell the bottle; ‘but it is to be for less than three ducats.’ Willebald says, ‘No marine-storekeeper would give three ducats for an old bottle;’ but he goes off shouting, out ‘Who’ll buy a bottle? Who’ll buy a bottle?’ In the next scene, Willebald is still shouting his bottle for sale, with folks laughing off stage and dogs barking. He says, ‘Ah! laugh away. It’s well to be merry, but I’m obliged to cry—Who’ll buy a bottle?’ He then says he’s ‘not going walking about all day selling a bottle;’ and then he says he’s got two ducats, and he’ll buy the bottle himself, sooner than trudge about Venice. Then he says, ‘Oh, Mr. Bottle, here are the ducats; now you are mine.’ Then the demon cries, ‘Mine, mine!’ He says it was only the wind. Then he says, ‘Oh, how I wish I was at home again, and heard my little brothers and sisters singing!’ And instantly from the sides you hear, ‘Boys and girls come out to play!’ Then Willebald says, ‘I wish you’d hold your tongue, you little brutes!’ and they cease. Next he complains that he’s so poor, and he wishes it would rain gold on him, and then down comes a shower. Then in comes Albert, who asks whether the bottle has been sold; and Willebald replies that it’s all right. ‘Thank heavens,’ cries Albert; ‘but yet I pity the miserable wretch who has bought it.’ ‘What do you mean? O dear, O dear! to frighten one so! I’ll tell your mother!’ ‘Know ye not, caitiff!’ continues Albert, ‘that that bottle contains a demon? O what a weight hast thou removed from my heart!’ As Willebald is deploring his lot, enter a poor man, who asks for a drink of water; and Willebald tells him he can’t give him any water, but he has an elixir he shall have very cheap. The old man replies that he hasn’t got more than a petani, which is the sixtieth part of a farthing. However, Willebald sells him the bottle; and as it’s the smallest coin in the world, and the bottle can’t go no cheaper, the demon rushes in and seizes the beggar, who turns out to be Nicolo, the first who sold the bottle. As he is being carried off, Willebald cries out, ‘For shame, you ugly devil! to treat the old gentleman like that! Won’t I tell your mother!’ and down comes the curtain.

“The ‘Bottle Imp’ is a very successful romantic drama. There’s plenty of blue fire in it. The ‘Bottle Imp’ have it at every entrance that fellow do. There is some booths that are fonder of the ‘Bottle Imp’ than any other piece. We played it at Bill Weale’s theatre more than any other drama. The imp is always acted by a man in a cloak with a mask on. You can see his cavalier boots under his cloak, but that don’t matter to holiday folk when once they know it’s intended to be a demon.

“It’s a very jolly life strolling, and I wouldn’t leave it for any other if I had my choice. At times it’s hard lines; but for my part I prefer it to any other. It’s about fifteen shillings a-week for certain. If you can make up your mind to sleep in the booth, it ain’t such bad pay. But the most of the men go to lodgings, and they don’t forget to boast of it. ‘Where do you lodge?’ one’ll ask. ‘Oh, I lodged at such a place,’ says another; for we’re all first-rate fellows, if you can get anybody to believe us.

“Mummers’ feed is a herring, which we call a pheasant. After performance we generally disperse, and those who have lodgings go to ’em; but if any sleep in the booth, turn in. Perhaps there’s a batch of coffee brought forwards, a subscription supper of three. The coffee and sugar is put in a kettle and boiled up, and then served up in what we can get: either a saucepan lid, or a cocoa-nut shell, or a publican’s pot, or whatever they can get. Mummers is the poorest, flashest, and most independent race of men going. If you was to offer some of them a shilling they’d refuse it, though the most of them would take it. The generality of them is cobblers’ lads, and tailors’ apprentices, and clerks, and they do account for that by their having so much time to study over their work.

“Private business is a better sort of acting. There we do nearly the entire piece, with only the difficult parts cut out. We only do the outline of the story, and gag it up. We’ve done various plays of Shakspeare in this way, such as ‘Hamlet’ or ‘Othello,’ but only on benefit occasions. Then we go as near as memory will let us, but we must never appear to be stuck for words. Our prices of admission in the country for private business is threepence and sixpence, or sometimes sixpence or one shilling, for it all depends upon the town, but in London it’s oftener one penny and twopence. We only go to the outskirts and act there, for they won’t allow us in the streets. The principal parts for pitching the booth for private business in London, is about Lock’s-fields, Walworth. We opened there about six years ago last Easter.

“Our rehearsals for a piece are the funniest things in the world. Perhaps we are going to play ‘The Floating Beacon, or The Weird Woman of the Wreck.’ The manager will, when the night’s performance is over, call the company together, and he’ll say to the low-comedyman, ‘Now, you play Jack Junk, and this is your part: you’re supposed to fetch Frederick for to go to sea. Frederick gets capsized in the boat, and gets aboard of the floating beacon. You go to search for him, and the smugglers tell you he’s not aboard, and they give you the lie; then you say, ‘What, the lie to a English sailor!’ and you chuck your quid in his eye, saying, ‘I’ve had it for the last fourteen days, and now I scud it with a full sail into your lubberly eye.’ Then you have to get Frederick off.’

“Then the manager will turn to the juvenile, and say, ‘Now, sir, you’ll play Frederick. Now then, Frederick, you’re in love with a girl, and old Winslade, the father, is very fond of you. You get into the boat to go to the ship, and you’re wrecked and get on to the beacon. You’re very faint, and stagger on, and do a back fall. You’re picked up by the weird woman, and have some dialogue with her; and then you have some dialogue with the two smugglers, Ormaloff and Augerstoff. You pretend to sleep, and they’re going to stab you, when the wild woman screams, and you awake and have some more dialogue. Then they bring a bottle, and you begin drinking. You change the cups. Then there’s more dialogue, and you tackle Ormaloff. Then you discover your mother and embrace. Jack Junk saves you. Form a picture with your mother, the girl, and old Winslade, and Jack Junk over you.’

“That’s his part, and he’s got to put it together and do the talk.

“Then the manager turns to Ormaloff and Augerstoff, and says: ‘Now, you two play the smugglers, do you hear? You’re to try and poison the young fellow, and you’re defeated.’

“Then he say to the wild woman: ‘You’re kept as a prisoner aboard the beacon, where your husband has been murdered. You have refused to become the wife of Ormaloff. Your child has been thrown overboard. You discover him in Frederick, and you scream when they are about to stab him, and also when he’s about to drink. Make as much of it as you can, please; and don’t forget the scream.’

“‘Winslade, you know your part. You’ve only got to follow Junk.’

“‘You’re to play the lady, you Miss. You’re in love with Frederick. You know the old business: ‘What! to part thus? Alas! alas! never to this moment have I confessed I love you!’’

“That’s a true picture of a mumming rehearsal, whether it’s fair or private business. Some of the young chaps stick in their parts. They get the stage-fever and knocking in the knees. We’ve had to shove them on to the scene. They keep on asking what they’re to say. ‘Oh, say anything!’ we tell ’em, and push ’em on to the stage.

“If a man’s not gifted with the gab, he’s no good at a booth. I’ve been with a chap acting ‘Mary Woodbine,’ and he hasn’t known a word of his part. Then, when he’s stuck, he has seized me by the throat, and said, ‘Caitiff! dog! be sure thou provest my wife unfaithful to me.’ Then I saw his dodge, and I said, ‘Oh, my lord!’ and he continued—‘Give me the proof, or thou hadst best been born a dog.’ Then I answered, ‘My lord, you wrong your wife, and torture me;’ and he said, ‘Forward, then, liar! dog!’ and we both rushed off.

“We were acting at Lock’s-fields, Walworth, once, doing private business, when we got into trouble, and were all put into prison for playing without a license. We had built up in a piece of private ground—in a dust-yard known as Calf’s—and we had been there eleven months doing exceedingly well. We treated the policeman every night, and gave him as much, with porter and money, that was equal to one shilling a-night, which was taken up from the company. It was something like a penny a-piece for the policeman, for we were rather afraid of something of the kind happening.

“It was about the time that ‘Oliver Twist’ was making such a success at the other theatres, and so we did a robbery from it, and brought out our version as ‘The Golden Farmer.’ Instead of having an artful dodge, we called our comic character Jimmy Twitcher, and made him do all the artful-dodgery business. We had three performances a-night in those days. We was in our second performance, and Jimmy Twitcher was in the act of getting through the window, and Hammer, the auctioneer, was asleep, saying in his sleep, ‘Knock ’em down! going! going! gone!’ when I saw the police in private clothes rising from the front seats, and coming towards the stage. They opened the side door, and let the other police in, about forty of them. Then the inspector said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I forbid any of you to move, as I arrest those people for performing without a license.’ Nobody moved. Three police took hold of me, one at each arm, and one at the back of the neck. They wouldn’t allow us to change our dresses, nor to take our other clothes, though they were close by. They marched us off to the Walworth station, along with about a hundred of the spectators, for some of them got away. My wife went to fetch my clothes for me, and they took her, too, and actually locked her up all night, though she was so near her pregnancy that the doctor ordered her pillows to sleep on. In the morning they took us all before the magistrate. The audience were fined one shilling a-head, or seven days; but they paid the shilling. We were all fined twenty shillings, or fourteen days. Some paid, but I couldn’t raise it, so I was walked off.

“We were all in an awful fright when we found ourselves in the police-cell that night. Some said we should get six months, others twelve, and all we could say was, ‘What on earth will our old women do?’

“We were all in our theatrical costumes. I was Hammer, the auctioneer, dressed in a long white coat, with the swallow-tails touching the ground, and blue bottoms. I had a long figured chintz waistcoat, and a pair of drab knee-breeches, grey stockings, and low shoes, and my hat was a white one with a low crown and broad brim, like a Quaker’s. To complete it, I wore a full bushy wig. As we were being walked off from Walworth to Kennington-lane, to go before the magistrate, the tops of the houses and the windows were full of people, waiting to see us come along in our dresses. They laughed more than pitied us. The police got pelted, and I caught a severe blow by accident, from a turnip out of a greengrocer’s shop.

“I served all the time at Kingston, in my theatrical dress. I had nothing but bread and water all the time, with gruel for breakfast and supper. I had to pick oakum and make mats. I was only there two days before I was made deputy-wardsman, for they saw I was a decent sort of fellow. I was very much cut up, thinking of the wife so near her confinement. It was very hard, I thought, putting us in prison for getting our bread, for we never had any warning, whatever our master may have had. I can tell you, it was a nail in my coffin, these fourteen days, and one of us, of the name of Chau, did actually die through it, for he was of a very delicate constitution, and the cold laid hold of him. Why, fellows of our life and animation, to be shut up like that, and not allowed to utter a word, it was dreadful severe.

“At this time a little penny work came out, entitled the ‘Groans of the Gallows.’ I was working at an establishment in Whitechapel, and it was thought that something fresh would be a draw, and it was suggested that we should play this ‘Groans of the Gallows,’ for everything about hanging was always a hit. There was such a thing as ten people in the piece, and five was prominent characters. We got it written by one of the company, and it was called ‘The Groans of the Gallows, or The Hangman’s Career, illustrated with pictures.’ This is how we brought it out. After an overture, the curtain rose and discovered a group on the stage, all with pots and pipes, gin measures, &c. They sing, ‘We won’t go home till morning,’ and ‘Kightly’s a jolly good fellow.’ Here the hangman is carousing with them, and his wife comes in and upbraids him with his intoxicating habits, and tells him that he spends all the money instead of purviding food for the children. A quarrel ensues, and he knocks her down with a quart pot and kills her. I was the hangman. There is then a picture of amazement from all, and he’s repenting of what he’s done. He then says, ‘This comes of a little drinking. From the half-pint to the pint, from the pint to the pot, and so on, till ruin stares me in the face. Not content with starving my children, I have murdered my wife. Oh that this may be a moral to all!’

“The officers come in and arrest him, when enters the sheriff, who tells him that he has forfeited his life; but that there is a vacancy for the public executioner, and that if he will accept the office his life shall be spared. He accepts the office, and all the characters groan at him. This ends the first scene. In the second enters Kightly and two officers, who have got him and accuse him of murder. He is taken off proclaiming his innocence. Scene the third. Kightly discovered at table in condemned cell, a few months supposing to have elapsed. The bell is tolling, and the hour of seven is struck. Enter sheriffs with hangman, and they tell him to do his duty. They then leave him, and he speaks thus: ‘At length, then, two little months only have elapsed, and you, my friend and pot-companion, aye, and almost brother, are the first victim that I have to execute for murder,’—and I shudder you know—‘which I know you are innocent of. Am I not a murderer, and do I not deserve hanging more than you? but the law will have it’s way, and I, the tool of that law, must carry it into force. It now becomes my painful duty to pinion your arms.’ Then I do so, and it makes such a thrill through the house. ‘I now take you from this place to your execution, where you will be suspended for one hour, and then it is my duty to cut you down. Have you any request to make?’ He cries ‘None!’ and I add, ‘Then follow me.’ I always come on to that scene with a white night-cap and a halter on my arm. All the audience was silent as death as I spoke, and with tears in their eyes. Scene the fourth. Gallows being erected by workmen. That’s a picture, you know, our fixing the top beam with a hammer, another at the bottom, and a third arranging the bolt at the top. The bell still tolling, you know. Ah, it brought it home to one or two of them, I can tell you. As soon as the workmen have finished they go off. Enter procession of sheriff, parson, hangman, and the victim, with two officers behind. The parson asks the victim if he has any request to make, and he still says ‘None,’ only he is innocent. The sheriffs then tell the hangman to do his duty. He then places the white cap over the man’s head, and the noose about his neck, and is about leaving to draw the bolt, when I exclaim, ‘Something here tells me that I ought not to hang this man. He is innocent, and I know it. I cannot, and I will not take his life.’ Enter officer in haste, with pardon for Kightly. I then say, ‘Kightly, you are free; live and be happy, and I am——’ Here the sheriff adds, ‘Doomed to the galleys for life.’ That’s because I refused to kill him, you know. I then exclaim, ‘Then I shall be happy, knowing that I have not taken this man’s life, and be thus enabled to give up the office of executioner and it’s most horrid paraphernalia.’ Then there’s blue fire and end of piece.

“That piece was very successful, and run for three weeks. It drew in a deal of money. The boys used to run after me in the streets and call me Calcraft, so great was the hit I made in the part. On one occasion a woman was to be hung, and I was going along Newgate, past the prison, on the Sunday evening. There was a quantity of people congregated, and some of the lads then recognised me from seeing me act in the ‘Groans from the Gallows,’ and they sung out ‘Here comes Calcraft!’ Every eye was turned towards me. Some said, ‘No, no; that ain’t him;’ but the boys replied, ‘Oh, yes it is; that’s the man that played it at the gaff.’ Of course I mizzled, for fear of a stone or two.

“The pay of an actor in private business varies from two shillings and sixpence to three shillings, and each man is also supposed to sing two songs in each performance, which makes three performances a night besides performing a sketch. Your engagement lasts as long as you suit the audience; for if you’re a favourite you may have such a thing as nine months at a time. Whenever we have a benefit it’s a ticket one, which amounts to two hundred tickets and your night’s salary, which generally brings you in a pound, with your pay included. There’s one in the company generally has a benefit every Thursday, so that your turn comes once in about six months, for the musicians, and the checktakers, and all has their turn.

“The expense of putting a new piece on the stage is not more than a pound, and that includes new scenery. They never do such a thing as buy new dresses. Perhaps they pay such a thing as six shillings a-week for their wardrobe to hire the dresses. Some gives as much as ten shillings; but then, naturally, the costume is more showy. All that we are supposed to find is russet boots, a set of fleshings, a ballet shirt, and a wig.

“Town work is the more quiet and more general-business like. There’s no casualty in it, for you’re not in shares, but on salaries, and after your work there’s your money, for we are paid nightly. I have known as much as thirty-five shillings a-week given at one of these theatres, when the admission is only a penny and twopence. Where I was at it would hold from six to seven hundred people, and there was three performances a-night; and, indeed, on Saturdays and Mondays generally four. We have no extra pay for extra performances. The time allowed for each representation is from one hour to an hour and three-quarters. If we find there is a likelihood of a fourth house, we leave out a song each singer, and that saves half an hour. As soon as one house is turned out another comes in, for they are always waiting outside the doors, and there is a rush immediately the house is empty. We begin at six and are over by a few minutes before twelve. When we do speaking pieces we have to do it on the sly, as we should be stopped and get into trouble.”

Ballet Performers.

“The Ballet,” said a street-dancer to me, “is a very favourite amusement with the people who go to cheap penny theatres. They are all comic, like pantomimes; indeed, they come under that term, only there’s no comic scenes or transformations. They’re like the story of a pantomime, and nothing else. Nearly all the popular clowns are famous for their ballet performances; they take the comic parts mostly, and the pantaloons take the old men’s parts. Ballets have been favourites in this country for forty or fifty year. There is always a comic part in every ballet. I have known ballets to be very popular for ever since I can remember,—and that’s thirty years. At all the gaffs, where they are afraid to speak their parts, they always have a ballet. Every one in London, and there are plenty of them, have one every night, for it’s very seldom they venture upon a talking play.

“In all ballets the costume is fanciful. The young ladies come on in short petticoats, like them at the opera. Some of the girls we have are the same as have been in the opera corps-de-ballet. Mr. Flexmore, the celebrated clown, is a ballet performer, and there’s not a greater man going for the ballet that he appears in, called ‘The Dancing Scotchman.’ There’s Paul Herring, too; he’s very famous. He’s the only man I know of that can play Punch, for he works the speaker in his mouth; and he’s been a great Punch-and-Judy man in his time. He’s very clever in ‘The Sprite of the Vineyard, or the Merry Devil of Como.’ They’ve been playing it at Cremorne lately, and a very successful affair it was.

“When a professional goes to a gaff to get an engagement, they in general inquires whether he is a good ballet performer. Everything depends upon that. They also acts ballets at some of the concert-rooms. At the Rising Sun, Knightsbridge, as well as the Brown Bear, Knightsbridge, they play them for a week at a time, and then drop them for a fortnight for a change, and perhaps have tumblers instead; then they have them again for a week, and so on. In Ratcliffe Highway, at Ward’s Hoop and Grapes, and also the Albion, and the Prince Regent, they always play ballets at stated intervals. Also the Effingham Saloon, Whitechapel, is a celebrated ballet-house. The admission to all these houses is 2d. I believe. At the Highway, when the ships are up and the sailors ashore, business is very brisk, and they are admitted to the rooms gratuitously; and a fine thing they make of them, for they are good-hearted fellows and don’t mind what money they spend. I’ve known one who was a little way gone to chuck half-a-crown on the stage to some actor, and I’ve known others to spend a pound at one bit,—standing to all round! One night, when I was performing ballets at the Rising Sun, Knightsbridge, Mr. Hill, the Queen’s coachman, threw me two half-crowns on to the stage. We had been supposed to be fighting,—I and my mate,—and to have got so exhausted we fell down, and Mr. Hill came and poured three glasses of port-wine negus down our throats as we laid. I’ve repeatedly had 1s. and 6s. thrown to me by the grooms of the different people of nobility, such as the Russells and various other families.

“A good ballet performer will get averaging from a pound to 35s. a-week. They call Paul Herring a star, and he is one, for he always draws wherever he goes. I generally get my 25s., that’s my running price, though I try for my 30s.; but 25s. is about my mark. I have always made Paul Herring my study, and I try to get to perform with him, for he’s the best clown of the day, and a credit to work with.

“It’s impossible to say how many ballet performers there are. There are such a host of them it’s impossible to state that, for they change so. Then a great many are out of employment until Christmas, for that generally fills the vacancies up. My wife does a little in ballets, though she is principally a poses plastique girl. I married my wife off the table.

“One of the most successful ballets is the Statue Blanche. It has been performed at every theatre in London, both the cheap and the regular. The Surrey is an enormous place for it. It came out, I believe, in Grimaldi’s time. It was played a fortnight ago at the Bower, and I took the part of the old man, and I was very successful; so far so, that I got a situation for Christmas. It’s an excellent plot, and runs an hour and a quarter to play.

“It begins with a romantic view, with a cottage on the right hand, and white palings round it, and a quantity of straw laying on the stage. The villagers and the lover come on. Lover goes to cottage door and knocks three times, when lady appears at window. He ballets to her, ‘Will you come down here and dance?’ She comes, and they all do a country dance. At the end of the dance the old man is heard to cough inside cottage. He opens the window and sees the girl outside, and shakes his fist at her. The lover hides behind the lady. He comes out and sends his daughter into cottage, and sends the lover off about his business. He refuses to do so. The old man makes a blow at him with his stick; he makes another, when lover bobs down and stick strikes Pierrot in the face, and knocks him down. This Pierrot is the Simpkin of the ballet, and he’s dressed in white, with long sleeves, and a white face, and white scalp on his head. The ballet is from the French, and its real title is ‘La Statue Blanche,’ though we call it ‘The Statue Blanche.’

“Lover is driven off stage, and old man picks up Simpkin, and ballets to him that he’s very sorry but he thought it was the lover, and tells him to hide under the straw which is on the stage, and that if the lover comes again to lay hold of him, to call assistance. He hides, and old man goes into cottage.

“Lover comes again with villagers carrying flails, and they begin to thresh this straw with Simpkin under it. They thresh him round stage. He knocks at door three times, and the third blow knocks old man in the face. Out he comes staggering. The old man threatens to sack lover. He goes into cottage and brings out lover’s bundle, and throws it to lover, and sends him away. The lover appeals to old man, but all to no use. The lover then ballets to him that he has got no money, so the old man hands his purse, which Simpkin takes and carries up stage. The lover still asks for money, and the old man is astonished, and then turns round and sees Simpkin, and makes him return it. Exit old man and Simpkin into cottage, leaving lover on stage. He leans against wing very disconsolate, when an artist comes on with a scrap-book to sketch the scene. He asks the lover what is the matter, and then he tells him he has a plan if lover will become a sketcher; and if he likes to do so, he will make a statue of him and sell him to the old man, as he deals in antiquities, and by that plan he will be able to gain the girl. They go off, and another old man comes on and knocks at door, which old father opens, and thinking it is lover tumbles him over. He then says he’s very sorry for mistaking him for the lover. They make it up, and the old man says he has plenty of money, and has come to marry the daughter. They embrace, and old father invites old man to step inside and have something to drink. As the second old man is going in, the Simpkin jumps over his head and hides; and old man swears it is the lover, and hunts for him, but can’t find him, and enters cottage. The second scene has got the tea business in it, and the blacking of the old lover’s face. The comic business here is, they are having tea, and Simpkin is waiting on them, and does every thing very clumsy. He carries on the old business of stirring the tea up with a candle, and then he puts the dirty kettle on the cloth and makes a mark; so he thinks for a minute, and then wipes the bottom of the kettle with the old lover’s handkerchief when he is not looking. Then Simpkin steals the milk-jug, and as he is drinking the old father hits him on the stomach, and makes him sputter in old lover’s face, who instantly snatches up the dirty handkerchief to wipe his face, and blacks it all over with the soot from the bottom of the kettle. Then there is some comic business about Simpkin breaking the tea-things, and bursting a coat in two; and then scene changes to a romantic view, with a pedestal in the centre, and statue on it. The old father comes on with the girl and Simpkin, and the villagers, who have all come to view the statue. The old man then calls the artist, and tells him to wind up the statue that he may see how it works. The statue does several positions, and the old man buys it. They all go off but Simpkin, the lady, and the old man. (The statue is still on the pedestal, you know.) The old man cautions Simpkin not to touch the statue, for he’s going away. As soon as he is gone, Simpkin goes and winds it up until he breaks the spring. Then in comes the old man again, and the fool goes to a corner and pretends to be asleep. He is pulled up by the ear and shown what he has done, and is about to be beaten, when girl intercedes and puts the statue to rights. They go off, leaving Simpkin with the statue. Lady returns, and statue jumps down and embraces her. The statue then takes off his helmet and wig, and chucks it at Simpkin, and rushes off with girl, and the clown mounts the pedestal. Enter old man, who ballets that he’ll have a turn as nobody is there. He goes and looks at statue, and perceives that he is in a different position. He turns the handle and Simpkin jumps about, burlesquing what the lover has done. Then Simpkin jumps down, and pushes the old man round stage with a club in his hand. Old man sings out ‘Murder!’ when lover returns with girl and stops Simpkin from knocking him down. They tell the old man they are married, and he joins their hands, and a general dance winds up the performance.

“That’s one of the most successful ballets ever imagined, and in its time has drawn thousands and thousands to see it. I don’t know who wrote the ballet, but I should imagine it was the property of Grimaldi’s father, who was a great pantomimist.

“There’s a new ballet, called ‘The Dream before the Wedding, or the Ploughboy turned Sailor.’ That one depends more upon the lover than the comic man. There’s another, called ‘The Boatman of the Ohio.’ That’s a comic nigger ballet, in which the banjo and bones are introduced; and there’s a very funny duet song, to the tune of ‘Roley poley.’ They both hide in a clock-case to hide from the old man, and they frighten each other, for they put their ugly black faces out and take each other for the devil. Then there’s ‘The Barber and the Beadle.’ The barber is one of Paul Herring’s favourite characters. I’ve done the beadle to his barber. There’s a very first-rate scene in it with the fop,—Jemmy Green he’s called, a cockney sort of a fellow,—and this barber has to shave him, and cuts his nose, and ties him in a chair, and shoves the soap-suds in his mouth. This fop is arranging with the father about the daughter, and the barber ties a line to a pole and fishes off the old man’s wig. The beadle is the father of the girl. It goes immense. I’ve played in it during my time more than 400 times.

“Another famous ballet is ‘The Cobbler and the Tailor.’ There’s a celebrated fight in that, between the tailor with his sleeve-board and goose, and the cobbler with his clam and his awl. The tailor tries to burn me with the goose, and he hunts me all about. We are about twenty minutes fighting. It’s a never-failing fight, that is. The sleeve-boards are split to make a noise at each knock, and so is the clam. There’s one, two, three, four, and a crack on the nob. We keep it up till both are supposed to fall down exhausted. Then there’s crowing ‘Cock-a-doodle-doo’ at each other. We enjoy it just as much as the audience do, for it’s very funny. Although the shirt is sticking to our backs with perspiration, we enter into the sport quite like them in front. We generally prefer winter for this ballet, for it’s hot work; or if it’s in the open air, like in gardens, then it’s very delightful.

“One of the principal things in ballet performing is to be able to do the raps, or slaps, well and quickly. A fellow gives me a clap on the face in the piece, then I have to slap my hands together, and make a noise as if he had given me a tremendous knock down. Of course, the closer the sound is to the blow, the better is the effect; and the art is to do it close. That’s what we call good working. The people, of course, follow with their eye the fist of the striker, and the one struck has his arms down in front, and claps them together. It is the same work as they do in the pantomimes. Another trick is hitting the knuckles when fighting, also striking on the head. That’s done by holding the stick close to the pate, and that takes the blow. On the knuckles the striker aims just above the fingers. It wants a quick eye. A fellow caught me on the nose, at the Bower, the other night, and took the skin off the tip; and there’s the mark now, you see. The principal distinction between pantomimes and ballets is that there are more cascades, and trips, and valleys in pantomimes, and none in ballets.

“A trip is a dance between Harlequin and the Columbine; and cascades and valleys are trundling and gymnastic performances, such as tumbling across the stage on wheels, and catching hold of hands and twirling round.

“We have done a kind of speaking ballet, where there is a little singing and talking just to help out the plot. It is a kind of pantomime sketch. It is entitled, ‘The Magic Mirror, or how to reclaim a drunken Servant.’ I was the author of it, for I’m generally engaged expressly to get up ballets, and occasionally they expect me to do a new one for them. I get from 25s. to 30s. a-week for such an engagement. The scene opens with a chamber in the front of the stage, with a candle on the table nearly burnt out. The clock strikes four. A servant in livery is waiting up for his other servant. He yawns and does the sleepy business. Then he says, ‘Whenever it is Thomas’s day out he stops so very late; master has threatened to discharge him, and he will get the sack. Would that I could reclaim him! I will endeavour to do so. I wish he would return.’ And that’s the cue for the other one off the stage to begin singing ‘I’ve been roving, I’ve been roving,’ &c. Then the honest servant says, ‘He comes! Now then to form a magic looking-glass, wherein he can see his errors. Now to procure four pieces of timber.’ He does so, and makes a square frame or strainer. ‘Now for a few tacks.’ He gets them, and then takes a gauze curtain down from the window, and places it on the back of the frame, which forms a looking-glass. Then lights is turned down on stage, and he puts a candle behind the mirror, which illuminates this gauze, you see. He then hides behind the glass.

“Thomas comes in very tipsy. He does the drunken business, and then says, ‘I’ve had the best of cheer. I’ve been down to farmer Cheer’s, and had the best of ale, and some good gin, and better brandy;’ at which the man behind the frame echoes, ‘Better brandy.’ Thomas is alarmed. He looks around and says, ‘That was the echo.’ To which the voice replies, ‘That was the echo.’ Then they repeat this business; Thomas getting still more nervous. He says, ‘Well, I declare, I’m getting quite melancholy. I’ll see what singing can do to rouse me a little.’ He then begins,—

“The glass takes up ‘Rosin his bo-o-o-o-w.’ The time this is going on, the other servant is dressing himself to represent the other; combing his hair, and painting his face, and everything. Thomas gets quite I don’t know how; and he says, ‘I wonder if I look frightened?’ And he goes to the glass, and the other appears at the same time, and it looks like the reflection in the glass. I’ve had some fools imagine it was the reflection. Thomas says ‘Oh, I look very nice!’ and as he speaks the other opens his mouth too. Then Thomas says, ‘Why I’ve got some black on my nose!’ and he goes to wipe it, and the form behind imitates him.

“He then goes down the stage and returns to glass again. There’s a deal of business carried on. At last Thomas sees the figure turn round whilst he’s looking in front, and then he exclaims, ‘That’s not me! My waistcoat ain’t split up the back! I’ll smash the glass.’ He knocks down the gauze, and out pops the figure, yelling ‘Ah! I’m the glass imp!’ Thomas falls down on the stage, and as the imp walks about, one off the side at the wing thumps the ground at each step with a piece of wood, to mark the steps. Then the servant says, ‘Fe fi fo fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman;’ and Thomas answers, ‘Oh no, Mr. Ghost, I ain’t an Englishman; I’m a Irish woman;’ and there’s a shout at that, of course. The servant continues,—‘Let him be alive, let him be dead,’—and Thomas says ‘I’m as dead as a red herring!’ and there’s another shout. The fellow-servant then catches hold of Thomas by the hair of the head, and tells him to follow him below. Thomas replies ‘Oh don’t! please, don’t, Mr. Ghost! I’ll do anything but follow you below, though you are so good-looking.’ ‘Will you promise to come home early for the future?’ ‘I will.’ ‘And never drink no more brandy nor stout?’ ‘I will.’ The fellow-servant shouts in a hoarse voice, ‘Nay, Slave! not I will, but I will not.’ ‘Not.’ ‘Enough! rise and look at me.’ ‘Oh, I wouldn’t for the world.’ ‘Don’t you know me?’ ‘Oh no! no! no! I never saw you before.’ ‘It’s all right, I’m your friend James: your fellow-servant!’ Then Thomas gets up and sees him, and begins laughing. ‘Oh, I wasn’t frightened: I knew you all the time.’ The other cove then shouts, ‘Fe fi fo fum;’ and down goes Thomas on his face and screams ‘Murder! murder!’ Then James says, ‘Oh, it’s only me; look!’ Then Thomas looks and says, ‘Well, I declare I thought you was the glass imp.’ ‘No, I only played this prank to reclaim you. Has it had its effect?’ ‘It has.’ ‘Then I have gained my end, since you are reformed; and I hope you are reformed.’ ‘I am; and I hope it will be a lesson to my friends in front, and that they will never take a drop too much.’ Then they sing together—

“That pantomimic farce always goes down with wonderful success. It has a regular round of applause, which is everybody clapping as hard as they can. Some of the tavern-keepers, in whose concert-rooms we done this ballet pantomime, don’t much like the wind-up to this piece,—about hoping our friends will take a lesson, and not drink too much. At one place the landlord happened to come just as that line was spoke, and he told me he’d fine me sixpence if I done it again. ‘Why, I ain’t sold a dozen pots of beer through it,’ he says. So I agreed with him to alter the tag to this,—‘and not drink no more than you can carry, for that never did any one any harm, but more is injurious.’ At some of these rooms, if a song is going too long and no drinking, the landlord will come in, and hold his hand up, as a cue for us to leave off and let the drinking begin again. Then the waiters looks the audience up again with their ‘Give your orders, gentlemen; give your orders.’

“This ballet pantomime was quite an innovation, and isn’t strictly ballet, but in the same line.

“Of all ballets, the one that has found the longest run is the ‘Statue Blanche.’ I’ve known it to go a month. All the young ladies in these pieces are regular ballet-girls, and all ‘turned out;’ that is, taught to stand with their dancing position. You know all of them is supposed to be able to kick their nose with their knees. You know they crick them when young, the same as a contortionist or acrobat. They are always practising. You see them in the green-room kicking their legs about. The men have to do the same, except the comic characters that don’t dance. Paul Herring is very clever at these things, and don’t want no practising. He can scratch his head with his foot. He’s the finest clown that ever trod in shoe-leather.

“The green-rooms at the concert-rooms are very tidy. Even at the penny gaffs the men and women have separate rooms. The women there have got their decency the same as at a theatre, and they wouldn’t go there if there wasn’t separate dressing-rooms. In fact, they keep themselves more from the men than the men from them, for they are all madames; and though they only keep a wheelbarrow, they carry themselves as if they had a coach.

“At the concert-rooms they have always a useful set of scenery, about similar to that at the penny gaffs. At some of them you don’t get so good scenery as at the gaffs. There’s in general a romantic scene, and a cottage, and so forth, and that’s all that’s wanted. There’s a regular proscenium to the theatres, with lights in front and all. The most usual manner is to have a couple of figures at the sides holding lights, and curtains behind them, because it answers for the ballets and also for the singing. At some of the concert-rooms there’s no side-entrance to the stage, and then you have to go across the audience dressed in your costume, before you can get on to the stage. It’s horrid, that is. I’ve done it many and many a time at Knightsbridge. It’s very bad, for everything depends upon being discovered when the curtain draws up. Some of the people will say, ‘Oh, that’s nothing; I’ve seen him before.’

“I have repeatedly seen people in front go to the stage and offer their glass to the actor to drink. We are forbid to receive them, because it interferes with business; but we do take it. I’ve seen drink handed on to the stage from three to four times a-night.

“Sometimes, when a dance has pleased the audience, or an acrobat, or a bottle equilibrist, they’ll throw halfpence on to the stage, to reward the performer. We sometimes do this for one another, so as to give the collection a start. We are forbidden to take money when it is thrown on to us, but we do. If a sixpence comes, we in general clap our foot on to it, and then your mate gives you a rap on the face, and we tumble down and put it in our mouth, so that the proprietor shan’t see us. If he saw it done, and he could find it, he’d take it away if he could. I have known a man pick up as much as 3s. after a dance. Then there are generally some one who is not engaged on the establishment, and he comes for what we term ‘the nobbings,’ that’s what is throw’d to him. I’ve known a clog-dancer, of the name of Thompson, to earn as much as 10s. of a night at the various concert-rooms. He’s very clever, and may be seen any night at the Hoop and Grapes, Ratcliffe-highway. He does 108 different steps, and 51 of them are on his toes.

“There’s in general from five to six people engaged in a concert-room performances, and for professionals alone that’ll come to from 30s. to 2l. a-night for expenses for actors and singers. That’s putting down nothing for the conductor, or musicians, or gas. Some of them charge 2d. or 1d. admission, but then there’s something extra put on to the drink. Porter is 5d. a pot, and fourpenny ale is charged 6d.; besides, you can’t have less than 6d. worth of gin-and-water. At such a room as the Nag’s Head in Oxford-street, I’ve known as many as from 200 to 300 go there in the evening; and the Standard, Pimlico, will hold from 400 to 450 people, and I’ve seen that full for nights together. There they only have merely a platform, and seldom do ballets, or Grecian statues, dancing, gymnastics, and various other entertainments, such as ventriloquism. There the admission is 4d., and on benefit occasions 6d.”

The Tight-Rope Dancers and Stilt-Vaulters.

“I am the father of two little girls who perform on the tight-rope and on stilts. My wife also performs, so that the family by itself can give an entertainment that lasts an hour and a half altogether. I don’t perform myself, but I go about making the arrangements and engagements for them. Managers write to me from the country to get up entertainments for them, and to undertake the speculation at so much. Indeed I am a manager. I hire a place of amusement, and hire it at so much; or if they won’t let it, then I take an engagement for the family. I never fancied any professional work myself, except, perhaps, a bit of sculpture. I am rather partial to the poses plastiques, but that’s all.

“Both my little girls are under eight years of age, and they do the stilt-waltzing, and the eldest does the tight-rope business as well. Their mother is a tight-rope dancer, and does the same business as Madame Sayin used to appear in, such as the ascension on the rope in the midst of fireworks. We had men in England who had done the ascension before Madame Sayin came out at Vauxhall, but I think she was the first woman that ever did it in this country. I remember her well. She lodged at a relation of mine during her engagement at the Gardens. She was a ugly little woman, very diminutive, and tremendously pitted with the small-pox. She was what may be called a horny woman, very tough and bony. I’ve heard my father and mother say she had 20l. a-night at Vauxhall, and she did it three times a-week; but I can’t vouch for this, as it was only hearsay.

“My eldest little girl first began doing the stilts in public when she was three-and-a-half years old. I don’t suppose she was much more than two-and-a-half years old when I first put her on the stilts. They were particularly short, was about four foot from the ground, so that she came to about as high as my arms. It was the funniest thing in the world to see her. She hadn’t got sufficient strength in her knees to keep her legs stiff, and she used to wabble about just like a fellow drunk, and lost the use of his limbs. The object of beginning so soon was to accustom it, and she was only on for a few minutes once or twice a-day. She liked this very much, in fact so much, that the other little ones used to cry like blazes because I wouldn’t let them have a turn at them. I used to make my girl do it, just like a bit of fun. She’d be laughing fit to crack her sides, and we’d be laughing to see her little legs bending about. I had a new dress made for her, with a spangled bodice and gauze skirt, and she always put that on when she was practising, and that used to induce her to the exercise. She was pleased as Punch when she had her fine clothes on. When she wasn’t good, I’d say to her, ‘Very well, miss, since you’re so naughty, you shan’t go out with us to perform; we’ll teach your little sister, and take her with us, and leave you at home.’ That used to settle her in a moment, for she didn’t like the idea of having the other one take her place.

“Some people, when they teach their children for any entertainment, torture the little things most dreadful. There is a great deal of barbarity practised in teaching children for the various lines. It’s very silly, because it only frightens the little things, and some children often will do much more by kindness than ill-usage. Now there are several children that I know of that have been severely injured whilst being trained for the Risley business. Why, bless your soul, a little thing coming down on it’s head, is done for the remainder of it’s life. I’ve seen them crying on the stage, publicly, from being sworn at and bullied, where they would have gone to it laughing, if they had only been coaxed and persuaded.

“Now my little things took to it almost naturally. It was bred and born in them, for my father was in the profession before me, and my wife’s parents were also performers. We had both my little girls on the stilts before they were three years old. It’s astonishing how soon the leg gets accustomed to the stilts, for in less than three months they can walk alone. Of course, for the first six weeks that they are put on we never leave go of their hands. The knees, which at first is weak and wabbly, gets strong, and when once that is used to the pad and stump (for the stilts are fastened on to just where the garter would come), then the child is all right. It does not enlarge the knee at all, and instead of crooking the leg, it acts in a similar way to what we see in a child born with the cricks, with irons on. I should say, that if any of my children have been born knock-kneed, or bow-legged, the stilts have been the means of making their legs straight. It does not fatigue their ankles at all, but the principal strain is on the hollow in the palm of the foot, where it fits into the tread of the stilt, for that’s the thing that bears the whole weight. If you keep a child on too long, it will complain of pain there; but mine were never on for more than twenty minutes at a time, and that’s not long enough to tire the foot. But one gets over this feeling.

“I’ve had my young ones on the stilts amusing themselves in my back-yard for a whole afternoon. They’ll have them on and off three or four times in a hour, for it don’t take a minute or two to put them on. They would put them on for play. I’ve often had them asking me to let them stop away from school, so as to have them on.

“My wife is very clever on the stilts. She does the routine of military exercise with them on. It’s the gun exercise. She takes one stilt off herself, and remains on the other, and then shoulders the stilt she has taken off, and shows the gun practice. She’s the only female stilt-dancer in England now. Those that were with her when she was a girl are all old women now. All of my family waltz and polka on stilts, and play tamborines whilst they dance. The little girls dance with their mother.

“It took longer to teach the children to do the tight-rope. They were five years old before I first began to teach them. The first thing I taught them to walk upon was on a pole passed through the rails at the back of two chairs. When you’re teaching a child, you have not got time to go driving stakes into the ground to fix a rope upon. My pole was a bit of one of my wife’s broken balance-poles. It was as thick as a broom handle, and not much longer. I had to lay hold of the little things’ hands at first. They had no balance-pole to hold, not for some months afterwards. My young ones liked it very much; I don’t know how other persons may. It was bred in them. They couldn’t stand even upright when first they tried it, but after three months they could just walk across it by themselves. I exercised them once every day, for I had other business to attend to, and I’d give them a lesson for just, perhaps, half an hour at dinner time, or of an evening a bit after I came home. My wife never would teach them herself. I taught my wife rope-dancing, and yet I could not do it; but I understood it by theory, though not by experience. I never chalked my young ones’ feet, but I put them on a little pair of canvas pumps, to get the feet properly formed to grasp the rope, and to bend round. My wife’s feet, when she is on the rope, bend round from continual use, so that they form a hollow in the palm of the foot, or the waist of the foot as some call it. My girls’ feet soon took the form. The foot is a little bit tender at first, not to the pole, because that is round and smooth, but the strands of the rope would, until the person has had some practice, blister the foot if kept too long on it. I never kept my young ones on the pole more than twenty minutes at a time, for it tired me more than them, and my arms used to ache with supporting them. Just when they got into the knack and habit of walking on the pole, then I shifted them to a rope, which I fixed up in my back-yard. The rope has to be a good cable size, about one-and-a-half inches in diameter. I always chalked the rope; chalk is of a very rough nature, and prevents slipping. The sole of the pump is always more or less hard and greasy. We don’t rough the soles of the pumps, for the rope itself will soon make them rough, no matter how bright they may have been. My rope was three feet six inches from the ground, which was a comfortable height for me to go alongside of the children. I didn’t give them the balance-pole till they were pretty perfect without it. It is a great help, is the pole. The one my wife takes on the rope with her is eighteen feet long. Some of the poles are weighted at both ends, but ours are not. My young ones were able to dance on the rope in a twelvemonth’s time. They wern’t a bit nervous when I highered the rope in my yard. I was underneath to catch them. They seemed to like it.

“They appeared in public on the tight-rope in less than a twelvemonth from their first lesson on the broom-stick on the backs of the chairs. My girl had done the stilts in public when she was only three years and six months old, so she was accustomed to an audience. It was in a gardens she made her first performance on the rope, and I was under her in case she fell. I always do that to this day.

“Whenever I go to fairs to fulfil engagements, I always take all my own apparatus with me. There is the rope some twenty yards long, and then there’s the pulley-blocks for tightening it, and the cross-poles for fixing it up, and the balance-poles. I’m obliged to have a cart to take them along. I always make engagements, and never go in shares, for I don’t like that game. I could have lots of jobs at that game if I liked. There’s no hold on the proprietor of the show. There’s a share taken for this, and a share for this, so that before the company come to touch any money, twenty shares are gone out of thirty, and only ten left for the performers. I have had a pound a-day for myself and family at a fair. At the last one I went to, a week ago, we took somewhere about 25s. a-day. When it isn’t too far from London, we generally come home at night, but otherwise we go to a tavern, and put up there.