“We’ve been continuing ever since at this Risley business. I lay down on a carpet, and throw then summersets from feet to feet. I tell you what the music plays to it,—it’s the railway overtime, and it begins now and then quicker and quicker, till I throw them fast as lightning. Sam does about fifty-four or fifty-five of these summersets one after another, and Johny does about twenty-five, because he’s littler. Then there’s standing upright, and stand ’em one in one hand and one on the other. Then I throws them up in summersets, and catch ’em on my palm, and then I chuck ’em on the ground.
“The art with me lying on the ground is that it takes the strength, and the sight to see that I catch ’em properly; for if I missed, they might break their necks. The audience fancies that it’s most with them tumbling, but every thing depends upon me catching them properly. Every time they jump, I have to give ’em a jerk, and turn ’em properly. It’s almost as much work as if I was doing it myself. When they learn at first, they do it on a soft ground, so as not to hurt theirselves. It don’t make the blood come to the head lying down so long on my back—only at first.
“I’ve done the Risley business first at penny exhibitions, and after that I went to fairs; then I went round the country with a booth—a man named Manly it was; but we dropped that, ’cos my little brother was knocked up, for it was too hard work for the little fellow building up and taking down the booth sometimes twice in a-day, and then going off twenty miles further on to another fair, and building up again the next day. Then we went pitching about in the main streets of the towns in the country. Then I always had a drum and pipes. As soon as a crowd collected I’d say, ‘Gentlemen, I’m from the principal theatres in London, and before I begin I must have five shillings in the ring.’ Then we’d do some, and after that, when half was over, I’d say, ‘Now, gentlemen, the better part is to come, and if you make it worth my while, I go on with this here entertainment;’ then, perhaps, they’d give me two shillings more. I’ve done bad and done good in the country. In one day I’ve taken two pounds five shillings, and many days we’ve not taken eight shillings, and there was four of us, me and my two brothers and the drummer, who had two-and-sixpence a-day, and a pot of beer besides. Take one week with another we took regular two pounds five shillings, and out of that I’d send from twenty to thirty shillings a-week home to my parents. Oh, I’ve been very good to my parents, and I’ve never missed it. I’ve been a wild boy too, and yet I’ve always taken care of father and mother. They’ve had twelve in family and never a stain on their character, nor never a key turned on them, but are upright and honourable people.
“At a place called Brenford in Norfolk—where there’s such a lot of wild rabbits—we done so well, that we took a room and had bills printed and put out. We charged threepence each, and the room was crowded, for we shared twenty-five shillings between us. When the people see’d me and my brothers come on dressed all in red, and tumble about, they actually swore we were devils, and rushed out of the place; so that, though there was a room full, there was only two stopped to see the performances. One old man called out, ‘O wenches’—they call their wives wenches—‘come out, they be devils.’ We came out with red faces and horns and red dresses, and away they went screaming. There was one woman trampled on and a child knocked out of her arms. In some of these country towns they’re shocking strict, and never having seen anything of the kind, they’re scared directly.
“About six months ago I went to Woolwich with the boys, and there was a chap that wanted to fight me, because I wouldn’t go along with him. So, I says, ‘We won’t have no fighting;’ so I went along with him to Gravesend, and then we asked permission of the mayor, ’cos in country towns we often have to ask the mayor to let us go performing in the streets. There we done very well, taking twenty-five shillings in the day. Then we worked up by Chatham, and down to Herne-bay, and Ramsgate; and at Ramsgate we stopped a week, doing uncommon well on the sands, for the people on the chairs would give sixpence and a shilling, and say it was very clever, and too clever to be in the streets. We did Margate next, and then Deal, and on to Dover by the boat. At Dover, the mayor wouldn’t let us perform, and said if he catched us in the streets he’d have us took up. We were very hard up. So I said to Sam, ‘You must go out one way and I and Johnny the other, and busk in the public-house.’ Sam got eight shillings and sixpence and I four shillings. But I had a row with a sailor, and I was bruised and had to lay up. When I was better we moved to Folkestone. There was the German soldiers there, and we did very well. I went out one day with our carpet to a village close by, and some German officers made us perform, and gave us five shillings, and then we went the round of the beer-shops, and altogether we cleared five pounds before we finished that day. We also went up to the camp, where the tents was, and I asked the colonel to let me perform before the men, and he said, ‘Well it ain’t usual, but you may if you like.’ The officers we found was so pleased they kept on giving us two-shilling pieces, and besides we had a lot of foreign coin, which we sold to a jeweller for ten shillings.
“I worked my way on to Canterbury and Winchester, and then, by a deal of persuasion I got permission to perform in the back-streets, and we done very well. Then we went on to Southampton. There was a cattle fair, on—Celsey fair is, I think, the name of it; and then I joined another troupe of tumblers, and we worked the fair, and after that went on to Southampton; and when we began working on the Monday, there was another troupe working as well. After we had pitched once or twice, this other troupe came and pitched opposition against us. I couldn’t believe it at first, but when I see which was their lay, then says I, ‘Now I’ll settle this.’ We was here, as it was, and they came right on to us—there, as it may be. So it was our dinner-time, and we broke up and went off. After dinner we came out again, and pitched the carpet in a square, and they came close to us again, and as soon as they struck up, the people run away to see the new ones. So I said ‘I don’t want to injure them, but they shan’t injure us.’ So I walked right into the middle of their ring, and threw down the carpet, and says I, ‘Now, ladies and gentlemen, the best performance is the one that deserves best support, and I’ll show you what I can do.’ I went to work with the boys, and was two hours doing all my tumbling tricks. They was regularly stunned. The silver and the halfpence covered the carpet right over, as much as it would hold. I think there was three pounds. Then I says, ‘Now you’ve seen the tumbling, now see the perche.’ They had a perche, too; it was taller than mine; but, as I told them, it was because I couldn’t get no higher a one. So I went to work again, and cries I, ‘Now, both boys up;’ though I had only stood one on up to that time, and had never tried two of ’em. Up they goes, and the first time they come over, but never hurt theirselves. It was new to me, you see. ‘Up again, lads,’ says I; and up they goes, and did it beautiful. The people regular applauded, like at a theatre. Down came the money in a shower, and one gentleman took his hat round, and went collecting for us. Says I to this other school, ‘You tried to injure us, and what have you got by it? I beat you in tumbling, and if you can match the perche, do it.’ Then they says, ‘We didn’t try to injure you; come and drink a gallon of beer.’ So off we went, and the police told ’em to choose their side of the town and we would take ours. That settled the opposition, and we both done well.
“I’ve done the Risley in the streets of London, more so than at theatres and concerts. The stone paving don’t hurt so much as you would think to lie down. We don’t do it when it’s muddy. The boys finds no difference whatsumever in springing off the stones. It pays very well at times, you know; but we don’t like to do it often, because afterwards they don’t like to appreciate you in concerts and theatres, and likewise penny exhibitions.
“My brother Sam can jump like a frog, on his hands, through his legs, out of a one-pair window; and little Johnny throws out of a one-pair-of-stairs window a back summerset.
“It’s astonishing how free the bones get by practice. My brother Sam can dislocate his limbs and replace them again; and when sleeping in bed, I very often find him lying with his legs behind his neck. It’s quite accidental, and done without knowing, and comes natural to him, from being always tumbling. Myself, I often in my dreams often frighten my wife by starting up and half throwing a summersault, fancying I’m at the theatre, and likewise I often lie with my heels against my head.
“We are the only family or persons going about the streets doing the Risley. I’ve travelled all through England, Scotland, and Wales, and I don’t know anybody but ourselves. When we perform in the London theatres, which we do when we can get an engagement, we get six or seven pounds a-week between us. We’ve appeared at the Pavilion two seasons running; likewise at the City of London, and the Standard, and also all the cheap concerts in London. Then we are called ‘The Sprites’ by the Nelson family will appear; or, ‘The Sprites of Jupiter;’ or, ‘Sons of Cerea;’ or, ‘Air-climbers of Arabia!’