“The general pay for a clown, during fair-time, is 5s. or 6s. a-day, but that usually ends in your moving on the first day; then 4s. on the second, and, perhaps, 3s. on the third. The reason is, that the second and third day is never so good as the first. The excuse is, that business is not so good, and expenses are heavy; and if you don’t like it, you needn’t come again. They don’t stand about what you agree for; for instance, if it’s a wet day and you don’t open, there’s no pay. Richardson’s used, when the old man was alive, to be more money, but now it’s as bad as the rest of ’em. If you go on shares with a sharing company it averages about the same. We always share at the drum-head at night, when all’s over. It’s usually brought out between the stage and the bottom seat of the gallery. The master or missus counts out the money. The money on the drum-head may, if it’s a good fair, come to 16l. or 18l., or, as it most usually is, 9l. or 10l. I have known us to share 1l. a-piece afore now; and I’ve known what it is to take 10d. for a share. We usually take two fairs a-week, or we may stay a night or two after the fair’s over, and have a bespeak night. The wages of a clown comes to—if you average it—1l. a-week all the year round, and that’s puffing it at a good salary, and supposing you to be continually travelling. Very likely, at night we have to pull down the booth after performing all day, and be off that night to another fair—15 or 16 miles off it may be—and have to build up again by the next afternoon. The women always ride on the top of the parade carriages, and the men occasionally riding and shoving up behind the carriages up hill. The only comfort in travelling is a short pipe, and many a time I’ve drowned my woes and troubles in one.
“The scene of sharing at the drum-head is usually this,—while the last performance is going on the missus counts up the money; and she is supposed to bring in all the money she has taken, but that we don’t know, and we are generally fiddled most tremendous. When the theatre’s empty, she, or him, generally says, ‘Now lads, please, now ladies! it’s getting late;’ and when they have all mustered it’s generally the cry, ‘We’ve had a bad fair!’ The people seldom speak. She then takes the number of the company,—we generally averages some sixteen performers,—and after doing so she commences sharing, taking up two or three shares, according to the ground-rent; one then to herself for taking money; then for the husband being there, (for they don’t often perform); then they takes shares for the children, for they makes them go on for the fairies, and on our parade. Snuffy Johnson used to take two shares for the wardrobes and fittings, and that is the most reasonable of any of ’em, for they mostly take double that; indeed, we always took six. Then there are two shares for ground-rent, and two for travelling expenses. The latter two shares depend entirely upon the fair; for the expenses are just the same whether we takes money or not, so that if it’s a bad fair, more has to be deducted, and that’s the worse for us, on both sides. That makes twelve or thirteen shares to be deducted before the men touch a penny for themselves. Any strolling professional who reads that will say, ‘Well, ’tis very considerate; for it’s under the mark, and not over.’
“When we have finished at one fair, if we want to go to another the next day, as soon as the people have gone in for the last performance we commence taking down the pay-box, and all the show-fittings on the outside, and all that isn’t wanted for the performance. As soon as the mummers have done their first slang, if they are not wanted in the pantomime they change themselves and go to work pulling down. When the pantomime’s over, every one helps till all’s packed up; then sharing takes place, and we tramp on by night to the next fair. We then camp as well as we can till daylight, if it isn’t morning already, and to work we go building for the fair; and in general, by the time we’ve done building, it’s time to open.
“I’ve travelled with ‘Star’s Theatre Royal,’ and ‘Smith and Webster’s,’ (alias Richardson’s), and ‘Frederick’s Theatre,’ and ‘Baker’s Pavilion,’ and ‘Douglass’s travelling Shakspearian Saloon;’ (he’s got scenes from Shakspear’s plays all round the front, and it’s the most splendid concern on the road), and I’ve done the comic business at all of them. They are all conducted on the same principle, and do the same kind of business, as that I’ve described to you.
“When we’re travelling it depends upon the business as to what we eat. They talk of strolling actors living so jollily and well, but I never knew it fall to my share. What we call a mummer’s feed is potatoes and herrings, and they always look out for going into a town where there’s plenty of fresh herrings. A fellow we called Nancy Dawson was the best hand at herrings. I’ve known him go into a tavern and ask for the bill of fare, and shout out, ‘Well, Landlord, what have you got for dinner?’ Perhaps he’d say, ‘There’s beef and veal, sir, very nice—just ready;’ and then he’d say, ‘No, I’m sick of meat; just get me a nice bloater!’ and if it came to much more than a penny there was a row. If we are doing bad business, and we pass a field of swedes, there’s a general rush for the pull. The best judges of turnips is strolling professionals. I recollect, in Hampshire, once getting into a swede field, and they was all blighted: we pulled up a hundred, I should think, but when we cut them open they was all flaxy inside, and we, after all, had to eat the rind. We couldn’t get a feed. Sausages and fagots (that’s made of all the stale sausages and savaloys, and unsightly bits of meat what won’t sell) is what we gets hold of principally. The women have to make shifts as we do. We always get plenty of beer, even when we can’t get money; for we can sing a song or so, and then the yokels stand something: besides, there’s hardly a town we go into without some of the yokels being stage-struck, and they feel quite delighted to be among the professionals, and will give us plenty of beer if we’ll talk to them about acting.
“It’s impossible to say how many clowns there are working at canvas theatres. There’s so many meddling at it,—not good uns, but trying to be. I can mention fifty, I am sure, by name. I shouldn’t think you would exaggerate, if you was to say there was from one hundred and fifty to two hundred who call themselves clowns. Many of the first-rate clowns now in London have begun at strolling. There’s Herring, and Lewis, and Nelson, and plenty more, doing well now.
“It’s a hard life, and many’s the time we squeedge a laugh out, when it’s like killing us to do it. I’ve never known a man break down at a fair, done up, for, you see, the beer keeps us up; but I’ve known one chap to faint on the parade from exhaustion, and then get up, as queer as could be, and draw twopence and go and have a fish and bread. A woman at an oyster-stall alongside of the theatre give him a drop of beer. He was hearty and hungry, and had only joined lately,—regular hard up; so he went two days without food. When we shared at night he went and bought a ham-bone, and actually eat himself asleep, for he dropped off with the bone in his hand.”
The Penny-Circus Jester.
A man who had passed many years of his life as jester at the cheap circuses, or penny equestrian shows frequenting the fairs in the neighbourhood of London, obliged me with the following details:—
“There are only two kinds of clowns, the stage and the circus clown, only there is different denominations: for instance, the clown at the fair and the clown at the regular theatre, as well as the penny gaff (when they give pantomimes there), are one and the same kind of clown, only better or worse, according to the pay and kind of performance; but it’s the same sort of business. Now the circus clown is of the same kind as those that go about with schools of acrobats and negro serenaders. He is expected to be witty and say clever things, and invent anything he can for the evening’s performance; but the theatre clown is expected to do nothing but what enters into the business of the piece. Them two are the main distinctions we make in the perfession.