“I, of course, didn’t go on in my rags. I had a first-rate stage dress.
“After this grand appearance I got engaged at Gravesend fair by Middleton, and there I had eight shillings a-day, and I stopped with him three weeks over the fair. I used to do my performances outside on the parade, never inside. I had to do the stone-breaking about nine or ten times a-day. They were middling stones, some larger and some smaller, and the smaller ones about half-a-hundred weight, I suppose. Any man might bring his stone and hammer, and break it himself. The one who struck was generally chosen from the crowd; the biggest chap they could find. I’ve heard ’em say to me, ‘Now, old chap, I’ll smash you all to bits; so look out!’ The fact is, the harder they strike the better for me, for it smashes it at once, and don’t keep the people in suspense.
“It was at Gravesend that I met with my second and last accident. With the cutting of the chest, it is the only one I ever had. The feller who came up to break the stone was half tipsy and missed his aim, and obliged me by hitting my finger instead of the stone. I said to him, ‘Mind what you are doing,’ but I popped my hand behind me, and when I got up I couldn’t make out what the people was crying out about, till I looked round at my back and then I was smothered in blood. Middleton said, ‘Good God! what’s the matter?’ and I told him I was hit on the finger. When the cry was given of ‘All in to begin,’ I went into a booth close by and had some brandy, and got a doctor to strap up the finger, and then I went on with the parade business just the same. It didn’t pain me nothing like what I should have thought. It was too hard a knock to pain me much. The only time I felt it was when the doctor dressed it, for it gave me pepper taking the plaster off.
“I was at Gravesend some time, and I went to work again stone-masoning, and I had a guinea a-week, and in the evening I used to perform at the Rose Inn. I did just as I liked there. I never charged ’em anything. I lived in the house and they never charged me anything. It was a first-rate house. If I wanted five shillings I’d get it from the landlord. I was there about eleven months, and all that time I lived there and paid nothing. I had a benefit there, and they wouldn’t even charge me for printing the bills, or cards, or anything. It was quite a clear benefit, and every penny taken at the doors was given to me. I charged a shilling admittance, and the room was crowded, and they was even on the stairs standing tip-toe to look at me. I wanted some weights, and asked a butcher to lend ’em to me, and he says, ‘Lend ’em to you! aye, take the machine and all if it’ll serve you.’ I was a great favourite, as you may guess.
“After Gravesend I came up to London, and went and played the monkey at the Bower Saloon. It was the first time I had done it. There was all the monkey business, jumping over tables and chairs, and all mischievous things; and there was climbing up trees, and up two perpendicular ropes. I was dressed in a monkey’s dress; it’s made of some of their hearth-rugs; and my face was painted. It’s very difficult to paint a monkey’s face. I’ve a great knack that way, and can always manage anything of that sort.
“From the Bower I went on to Portsmouth. I’d got hard up again, for I’d been idle for three months, for I couldn’t get any money, and I never appear under price. I walked all the way to Portsmouth, carrying a half-hundred weight, besides my dress, all the way; I played at the tap-rooms on the road. I did pretty middling, earned my living on the road, about two shillings a-day. When I got to Portsmouth I did get a job, and a good job it was, only one shilling and sixpence a-night; but I thought it better to do that than nothing. I only did comic singing, and I only knew two songs, but I set to and learnt a lot. I am very courageous, and if I can’t get my money one way, I will another. With us, if you’ve got a shilling, you’re a fool if you spend that before you have another. I stopped at this public-house for two months, and then a man who came from Portsea, a town close by, came one night, and he asked me what I was doing. He had heard of what I could do, and he offered me two pounds a-week to go with him and do the strong business. He kept the Star Inn at Portsea. I stopped there such a thing as two years, and I did well. I had great success, for the place was cramm’d every night. For my benefit, Major Wyatt and Captain Holloway gave me their bespeak, and permission for the men to come. The admission was sixpence. Half the regiment marched down, and there was no room for the public. I was on the stage for two hours during my performances. I was tired, and fainted away as dead as a hammer after the curtain fell.
“Among other things I announced that I should, whilst suspended from the ceiling, lift a horse. I had this horse paraded about the town for a week before my night. There was such a house that numbers of people was turned away, and a comic singer who was performing at a house opposite, he put out an announcement that he too would lift a horse, and when the time came he brought on a clothes-horse.
“The way I did the horse was this: I was hanging by my ankles, and the horse was on a kind of platform under me. I had two sheets rolled up and tied round the horse like belly-bands, and then I passed my arms through them and strained him up. I didn’t keep him long in the air, only just lifted him off his legs. In the midst of it the bandage got off his eyes, and then, what with the music and the applauding, the poor brute got frightened and begun plunging. I couldn’t manage him at all whilst he was kicking. He got his two hind legs over the orchestra and knocked all the float-lights out. They kept roaring, ‘Bring him out! bring him out!’ as if they thought I was going to put him under my arm—a thundering big brute. I was afraid he’d crack his knees, and I should have to pay for him. The fiddler was rather uneasy, I can tell you, and the people began shifting about. I was frightened, and so I managed to pop part of the sheet over his head, and then I gave a tremendous strain and brought him back again.
“How the idea of lifting a horse ever came into my head, I don’t know. It came in a minute; I had never tried it before. I knew I should have a tremendous purchase. The fact is, I had intended to do a swindle by having lines passed down my dress, and for somebody behind to pull the ropes and help me. The town was in an uproar when I announced I should do it.
“It was at my benefit that I first broke stones with my fist. I don’t know whose original notion it was. I was not the first; there’s a trick in it. It’s done this way: anybody can do it. You take a cobbler’s lapstone, and it’s put on a half-hundred weight; you must hold it half an inch above, and then the concussion of the fist coming down smashes it all to bits. Any one can do it.