“Stilt-vaulting is dying out. You never see any children going about the streets as you did formerly. There never was so much money got as at that stilt-vaulting in the streets. My wife’s family, when she was young, thought nothing of going out of an afternoon, after dinner, and taking their three or four pounds. They used to be as tall up as the first-floor windows of some of the houses. It must be very nearly twenty years since I remember the last that appeared. It isn’t that the police would stop it, but there’s nobody to do it. It’s a very difficult thing to do, is walking about at that tremendous height. If you fall you’re done for. One of my little ones fell once—it was on some grass, I think—but she escaped without any hurt, for she was light, and gathered herself up in a heap somehow.
“There used to be a celebrated Jellini family, with a similar entertainment to what I give. They were at the theatres mostly, and at public gardens, and so on. They used to do ballets on stilts, and had great success. That must be forty years ago. There used to be the Chaffs family too, who went about the streets on stilts. They had music with them, and danced in the public thoroughfares. Now there is nothing of the kind going on, and it’s out of date.
“I have been abroad, in Holland, travelling with a circus company. I’ve also visited Belgium. The children and my wife were very much liked wherever they went. I was on an engagement then, and we had 11l. a-week, and I was with them seven weeks. They paid our travelling expenses there, and we paid them home.”
Street Reciter.
Street reciters are somewhat scarce now-a-days, and I was a long time before meeting with one; for though I could always trace them through their wanderings about the streets, and learn where they had been seen the night before, still I could never find one myself. I believe there are not more than ten lads in London,—for they seem to be all lads,—who are earning a livelihood by street-reciting.
At length I heard that some street actors, as they call themselves, lived in a court in the City. There were two of them—one a lad, who was dressed in a man’s ragged coat and burst boots, and tucked-up trowsers, and seemingly in a state of great want; and the other decently enough attired in a black paletot with a flash white-and-red handkerchief, or “fogle,” as the costermongers call it, jauntily arranged so as to bulge over the closely-buttoned collar of his coat. There was a priggish look about the latter lad, while his manner was “cute,” and smacked of Petticoat-lane; and though the other one seemed to slink back, he pushed himself saucily forward, and at once informed me that he belonged “to the profession” of street declaimer. “I and this other boy goes out together,” he said, as he took a short pipe from his mouth; and in proof of his assertion, he volunteered that they should on the spot give me a specimen of their histrionic powers.
I preferred listening to the modest boy. He was an extremely good-looking lad, and spoke in a soft voice, almost like a girl’s. He had a bright, cheerful face, and a skin so transparent and healthy, and altogether appeared so different from the generality of street lads, that I felt convinced that he had not long led a wandering life, and that there was some mystery connected with his present pursuits. He blushed when spoken to, and his answers were nervously civil.
When I had the better-natured boy alone with me, I found that he had been well educated; and his statement will show that he was born of respectable parents, and the reason why he took to his present course of life. At first he seemed to be nervous, and little inclined to talk; but as we became better acquainted, he chatted on even faster than my pen could follow. He had picked up several of the set phrases of theatrical parlance, such as, “But my dream has vanished in air;” or, “I felt that a blight was on my happiness;” and delivered his words in a romantic tone, as though he fancied he was acting on a stage. He volunteered to show me his declamatory powers, and selected “Othello’s Apology.” He went to the back of the room, and after throwing his arms about him for a few seconds, and looking at the ceiling as if to inspire himself, he started off.
Whilst he had been chatting to us his voice was—as I said before—like a girl’s; but no sooner did he deliver his, “Most potent, grave, and reverend Signiors,” than I was surprised to hear him assume a deep stomachic voice—a style evidently founded upon the melo-dramatic models at minor theatres. His good-looking face, however, became flushed and excited during the delivery of the speech, his eyes rolled about, and he passed his hands through his hair, combing it with his fingers till it fell wildly about his neck like a mane.
When he had finished the speech he again relapsed into his quiet ways, and resuming his former tone of voice, seemed to think that an apology was requisite for the wildness of his acting, for he said, “When I act Shakspeare I cannot restrain myself,—it seems to master my very soul.”