“I’ve been at acrobating for these thirty-five years, in London and all parts of England, as well as on the Continent, in France and Germany, as well as in Denmark and Sweden; but only in the principal towns, such as Copenhagen and Stockholm; but only a little, for we come back by sea almost directly. My father was a tumbler, and in his days very great, and used to be at the theatres and in Richardson’s show. He’s acted along with Joe Grimaldi. I don’t remember the play it was in, but I know he’s acted along with him at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, at the time there was real water there. I have heard him talk about it. He brought me regular up to the profession, and when I first came out I wasn’t above two years old, and father used to dance me on my hands in Risley’s style, but not like Risley. I can just recollect being danced in his hands, but I can’t remember much about it, only he used to throw me a somersault with his hand. The first time I ever come out by myself was in a piece called ‘Snowball,’ when I was introduced in a snowball; and I had to do the splits and strides. When father first trained me, it hurt my back awfully. He used to take my legs and stretch them, and work them round in their sockets, and put them up straight by my side. That is what they called being ‘cricked,’ and it’s in general done before you eat anything in the morning. O, yes, I can remember being cricked, and it hurt me terrible. He put my breast to his breast, and then pulled my legs up to my head, and knocked ’em against my head and cheeks about a dozen times. It seems like as if your body was broken in two, and all your muscles being pulled out like India rubber.
“I worked for my father till I was twelve years of age, then I was sold for two years to a man of the name of Tagg, another showman, who took me to France. He had to pay father 5l. a-year, and keep me respectable. I used to do the same business with him as with father,—splits, and such-like,—and we acted in a piece that was wrote for us in Paris, called “Les deux Clowns anglais,” which was produced at the Porte St. Antoine. That must have been about the year 1836. We were dressed up like two English clowns, with our faces painted and all; and we were very successful, and had plenty of flowers thrown to us. There was one Barnet Burns, who was showing in the Boulevards, and called the New Zealand Chief, who was tattooed all over his body. He was very kind to me, and made me a good many presents, and some of the ladies were kind to me. I knew this Barnet Burns pretty well, because my master was drunk all day pretty well, and he was the only Englishman I had to speak to, for I didn’t know French.
“I ran away from Tagg in Paris, and I went with the ‘Frères de Bouchett,’ rope-dancers, two brothers who were so called, and I had to clown to the rope. I stopped with them three years, and we went through Belgium and Holland, and done very well with them. They was my masters, and had a large booth of their own, and would engage paraders to stand outside the show to draw the people; but they did all the performances themselves, and it was mostly at the fairs.
“From them I came to England, and began pitching in the street. I didn’t much like it, after being a regular performer, and looked upon it as a drop. I travelled right down by myself to Glasgow fair. I kept company with Wombwell’s show,—only working for myself. You see they used to stop in the towns, and draw plenty of people, and then I’d begin pitching to the crowd. I wasn’t lonely because I knew plenty of the wild-beast chaps, and, besides, I’ve done pretty well, taking two or three shillings a day, and on a Saturday and Monday generally five or six. I had a suit of tights, and a pair of twacks, with a few spangles on, and as soon as the people came round me I began to work.
“At Glasgow I got a pound a day, for I went with Mr. Mumford, who had some dancing dolls showing at the bottom of the Stone buildings. The fair is a week. And after that one of our chaps wrote to me that there was a job for me, if I liked to go over to Ireland and join Mr. Batty, who had a circus there. They used to build wooden circuses in them days, and hadn’t tents as now. I stopped a twelvemonth with him, and we only went to four towns, and the troupe did wonders. Mr. Hughes was the manager for Mr. Batty. There was Herr Hengler, the great rope-dancer among the troupe, and his brother Alfred, the great rider, as is dead now, for a horse kicked him at Bristol, and broke his arm, and he wouldn’t have it cut off, and it mortified, and he died.
“When I left Ireland I went back to Glasgow, and Mr. David Miller gave the school I had joined an engagement for three months. We had 6l. a-week between four of us, besides a benefit, which brought us 2l. each more. Miller had a large penny booth, and had taken about 12l. or 14l. a-night. There was acting, and our performances. Alexander, the lessee of the Theatre Royal, prevented him, for having acted, as he also did Anderson the Wizard of the North, who had the Circus, and acted as well, and Mumford; but they won the day.
“I left Glasgow with another chap, and we went first to Edinburgh and then to Hamburgh, and then we played at the Tivoli Gardens. I stopped abroad for fourteen years, performing at different places through France and Switzerland, either along with regular companies or else by ourselves, for there was four on us, in schools. After Hamburgh, we went to Copenhagen, and then we joined the brother Prices, or, as they call ’em there, Preece. We only did tumbling and jumping up on each other’s shoulders, and dancing the pole on our feet, what is called in French ‘trankr.’ From there we joined the brothers Layman,—both Russians they was,—who was very clever, and used to do the ‘pierrot;’ the French clown, dressed all in white,—for their clown is not like our clown,—and they danced the rope and all. The troupe was called the Russian pantomimists. There we met Herr Hengler again, as well as Deulan the dancer, who was dancing at the Eagle and at the theatres as Harlekin; and Anderson, who was one of the first clowns of the day, and a good comic singer, and an excellent companion, for he could make puns and make poems on every body in the room. He did, you may recollect, some few years ago, throw himself out of winder, and killed himself. I read it in the newspapers, and a mate of mine afterwards told me he was crazy, and thought he was performing, and said, “Hulloa, old feller! I’m coming!” and threw himself out, the same as if he’d been on the stage.
“In Paris and all over Switzerland we performed at the fairs, when we had no engagements at the regular theatres, or we’d pitch in the streets, just according. In Paris we was regular stars. There was only me and R——, and we was engaged for three months with Mr. Le Compte, at his theatre in the Passage Choiseul. It’s all children that acts there; and he trains young actors. He’s called the ‘Physician to the King;’ indeed, he is the king’s conjurer.
“I’m very fond of France; indeed, I first went to school there, when I was along with Tagg. You see I never had no schooling in London, for I was so busy that I hadn’t no time for learning. I also married in France. My wife was a great bender (used to throw herself backwards on her hands and make the body in a harch). I think she killed herself at it; indeed, as the doctors telled me, it was nothing else but that. She would keep on doing it when she was in the family way. I’ve many a time ordered her to give over, but she wouldn’t; she was so fond of it; for she took a deal of money. She died in childbed at St. Malo, poor thing!
“In France we take a deal more money than in England. You see they all give; even a child will give its mite; and another thing, anybody on a Sunday may take as much money as will keep him all the week, if they like to work. The most money I ever took in all my life was at Calais, the first Sunday cavalcade after Lent: that is the Sunday after Mardi-gras. They go out in a cavalcade, dressed up in carnival costume, and beg for the poor. There was me, Dick S——, and Jim C—— and his wife, as danced the Highland fling, and a chap they calls Polka, who did it when it first came up. We pitched about the streets, and we took 700 francs all in half-pence—that is, 28l.—on one Sunday: and you mustn’t work till after twelve o’clock, that is grand mass. There were liards and centimes, and half-sous, and all kinds of copper money, but very little silver, for the Frenchmen can’t afford it; but all copper money change into five-franc pieces, and it’s the same to me. The other chaps didn’t like the liards, so I bought ’em all up. They’re like button-heads, and such-like; and they said they wouldn’t have that bad money, so I got more than my share: for after we had shared I bought the heap of liards, and gave ten francs for the heap, and I think it brought me in sixty francs; but then I had to run about to all the little shops to get five-franc pieces. You see, I was the only chap that spoke French; so, you see, I’m worth a double share. I always tell the chaps, when they come to me, that I don’t want nothink but my share; but then I says, ‘You’re single men, and I’m married, and I must support my children;’ and so I gets a little out of the hôtel expenses, for I charges them 1s. 3d. a-day, and at the second-rate hôtels I can keep them for a shilling. There’s three or four schools now want me to take them over to France. They calls me ‘Frenchy,’ because I can talk French and German fluently—that’s the name I goes by.