My engagement, however, was not with the Aquarium people direct, but with Mr. Harry Wieland, the husband of Zæo, a once famous gymnast. She was the lady who used to be shot out of a catapult, and perform other sensational feats in mid-air, and concerning whose performance, or rather, to be strictly accurate, the poster advertising it, which was the first poster to appear on the hoardings of a lady in tights, so tremendous a controversy raged in the public Press and elsewhere during the spring and summer of 1890.
At the time I went to the Aquarium, however, Zæo had ceased to perform as a gymnast, and was engaged in running a profitable side-show known as “Zæo’s Maze,” and which consisted mainly of a lot of mirrors arranged at different angles. There was also run in conjunction with the maze what we called a Turkish Harem, the forerunner of the similar type of exhibition afterwards made popular by the proprietors of “Constantinople in London” at Olympia.
My job was to act as doorman and attendant at this exhibition, and by my patter, etc., to induce the public to enter. “Pass in, ladies and gentlemen!” I would cry. “Pass in and see the wondrous hall of mirrors, and the bevy of dark-eyed Oriental beauties from the Far, Far East-End of London.”
This sort of thing served to put the crowd in a good humour, and in they would troop. The maze was a sufficiently puzzling place to be in, owing to the arrangement of the mirrors, fifty-two in number. But by swinging a certain double one round I was able, when I deemed it expedient to do so, to close the exit altogether, so that it was impossible for anybody inside to get out until I chose to let them. Many a sixpence and shilling used I to receive for showing bewildered wanderers round and round, how to escape from the trap I myself had set for them.
Also, visitors were not permitted to take sticks or umbrellas inside the maze, for fear they might poke the mirrors. I took charge of these for them, and the fees I received from this source still further swelled my income. It needed some swelling, I may add, to transform it into a living wage, for I only got thirty shillings a week from Mr. Wieland, and in return for this sum, in addition to all my other work, I had to clean the mirrors, so it will be readily apparent that my job was no sinecure.
Most of the Aquarium side-shows at this time were more or less of the “fake” variety. I remember, for instance, a “fasting lady” who came there. She was of quite Amazonian proportions when she first put in an appearance, but when she left she was as thin as a lath. Afterwards, however, I helped to clear out the room she had occupied during her forty days’—I think it was—“fast.”
Then the mystery, such as it was, was solved. We found sufficient horsehair padding to stuff a good-sized sofa, and then leave enough over for a couple of armchairs. There were also a lot of thin pieces of old iron, weighing in the aggregate pretty nearly half a hundredweight, and these she had evidently used for the purpose of concealing about her person under her clothes, when she was weighed prior to beginning her “fast.” Furthermore, in a certain dark corner was a huge pile of empty tins, that had once contained “bully” beef, salmon, sardines, chicken, vegetables of almost all sorts, baked beans, and various other toothsome comestibles. I came to the conclusion there and then that I would not have minded “fasting” for forty days on the same diet as did that lady.
Another “fake” show was performed by a girl who was supposed to be in a trance in her coffin. She was called “The Sleeping Beauty.” As a matter of fact she was not sleeping, nor was she beautiful. The coffin in which she reposed was tilted at an angle, and muslin drapery was hung over it. Through this she was able to see when a visitor, or visitors, were ushered into the room, and she would then go “off” into her trance. At all other times she was as lively as a kitten.
Quite near the maze was another side-show run by a conjuror calling himself Professor Field. This was a genuine show so far as it went, although Field, in my estimation at all events, was not much of a conjuror. His business consisted in performing certain tricks, and afterwards selling the “secret” of them, together with the simple apparatus necessary to perform them, to anyone who was prepared to pay him half-a-guinea for the same.
Now as it happened, soon after I came there, this gentleman joined partnership with another conjuror named Carlton, the show being run under the title of Field, Carlton & Co. This gave me an idea. If these people could give lessons in conjuring for money, I didn’t see why I shouldn’t do the same.