“I used to go to all the fêtes in Paris along with my troupe. We have been four and we have been five in one troupe, but our general number is four, for we don’t want any more than four; for we can do the three high and the spread, and that’s the principal thing. Our music is generally the drum and pipes. We don’t take them over with us, but gets Italians to do it. Sometimes we gets a German band of five to come for a share, for you see they can’t take money as we can, for our performance will cause children to give, and with them they don’t think about it, not being so partial to music.
“Posturing to this day is called in France ‘Le Dislocation anglais;’ and indeed the English fellows is the best in the world at posturing: we can lick them all. I think they eat too much bread; for though meat’s so cheap in the south of France (2d. a-lb.), yet they don’t eat it. They don’t eat much potatoes either; and in the south they gives them to the pigs, which used to make me grumble, I’m so fond of them. Chickens, too, is 7d. the pair, and you may drink wine at 1d. the horn.
“At St. Cloud fête we were called ‘Les Quatre Frères anglais,’ and we used to pitch near the Cascade, which was a good place for us. We have shared our 30s. each a-day then easy; and a great deal of English money we got then, for the English is more generous out of England. There was the fête St. Germain, and St. Denis, and at Versailles, too; and we’ve done pretty well at each, as well as at the Champs Elysées on the 1st of May, as used to be the fête Louis-Philippe. On that fête we were paid by the king, and we had fifty francs a man, and plenty to eat and drink on that day; and every poor man in Paris has two pound of sausages and two pounds of bread, and two bottles of wine. But we were different from that, you know. We had a déjeûné, with fish, flesh, and fowl, and a dinner fit for a king, both brought to us in the Champs Elysées, and as much as ever we liked to drink all day long—the best of wine. We had to perform every alternate half-hour.
“I was in Paris when Mr. Macready come to Paris. I was engaged with my troupe at the Porte St. Martin, where we was called the Bedouin Arabs, and had to brown our faces. I went to see him, for I knew one of the actors. He was very good, and a beautiful house there was—splendid. All my other partners they paid. The price was half-a-guinea to the lowest place. The French people said he was very good, but he was mostly supported by the English that was there. An engagement at the Porte St. Martin was 1000 francs a-week for five of us; but of course we had to leave the streets alone during the four weeks we was at the theatre.
“I was in Paris, too, at the revolution in 1848, when Louis-Philippe had to run off. I was in bed, about two o’clock in the morning, when those that began the revolution was coming round—men armed; and they come into everybody’s bed-room and said, ‘You must get up, you’re wanted.’ I told them I was English; and they said, ‘It don’t matter; you get your living here, and you must fight the same as we fight for our liberty.’ They took us—four English as was in the same gang as I was with—to the Barrière du Trône, and made us pick up paving-stones. I had to carry them; and we formed four barricades right up to the Faubourg St. Antoine, close to the Bastille. We had sometimes a bit of bread and a glass of wine, or brandy, and we was four nights and three days working. There was a great deal of chaff going on, and they called me ‘le petit Supplier’ posturer, you know—but they was of all countries. We was put in the back-ground, and didn’t fire much, for we was ordered not to fire unless attacked; and we had only to keep ground, and if anything come, to give warning; but we had to supply them with powder and ammunition of one sort and another. There was one woman—a very clever woman—from Normandy, who used to bring us brandy round. She died on the barricade; and there’s a song about her now. I was present when part of the throne was burned. After that I went for a tour in Lorraine; and then I was confined in Tours for thirty-four days, for the Republicans passed a bill that all foreigners were to be sent home to their own countries; and, indeed, several manufactories where English worked had to stop, for the workmen was sent home.
STREET ACROBATS PERFORMING.
“I came back to England in 1852, and I’ve been pitching in the streets ever since. I’ve changed gangs two or three times since then; but there’s five in our gang now. There’s three high for ‘pyramids,’ and ‘the Arabs hang down;’ that is, one a-top of his shoulders, and one hanging down from his neck; and ‘the spread,’ that’s one on the shoulders, and one hanging from each hand; and ‘the Hercules,’ that is, one on the ground, supporting himself on his hands and feet; whilst one stands on his knees, another on his shoulders, and the other one a-top of them two, on their shoulders. There’s loads of tricks like them that we do, that would a’most fill up your paper to put down. There’s one of our gang dances, an Englishman, whilst the fifth plays the drum and pipes. The dances are mostly comic dances; or, as we call them, ‘comic hops.’ He throws his legs about and makes faces, and he dresses as a clown.
“When it’s not too windy, we do the perch. We carry a long fir pole about with us, twenty-four feet long, and Jim the strong man, as they calls me, that is I, holds the pole up at the bottom. The one that runs up is called the sprite. It’s the bottom man that holds the pole that has the dangerous work in la perche. He’s got all to look to. Anybody, who has got any courage, can run up the pole; but I have to guide and balance it; and the pole weighs some 20 lbs., and the man about 8 stone. When it’s windy, it’s very awkward, and I have to walk about to keep him steady and balance him; but I’m never frightened, I know it so well. The man who runs up it does such feats as these; for instance, ‘the bottle position,’ that is only holding by his feet, with his two arms extended; and then ‘the hanging down by one toe,’ with only one foot on the top of the pole, and hanging down with his arms out, swimming on the top on his belly; and ‘the horizontal,’ as it is called, or supporting the body out sideways by the strength of the arms, and such-like, winding up with coming down head fust.