“The performance, to go through the whole of it, takes an hour and a half; and then you mustn’t stand looking at it, but as soon as one thing goes off the music changes and another comes on. That ain’t one third, nor a quarter of what I can do.
“When I’m performing I’m standing behind, looking down upon the stage. All the figures is hanging round on hooks, with all their strings ready for use. It makes your arms ache to work them, and especially across the loins. All the strength you have you must do, and chuck it out too; for those four figures which I uses at evening parties, which dance the polka, weighs six pounds, and that’s to be kept dangling for twenty minutes together. They are two feet high, and their skirts take three quarters of a yard, and are covered with spangles, which gives ’em great weight.
“There are only two of us going about now with Fantoccini shows. Several have tried it, but they had to knock under very soon. They soon lost their money and time. In the first place, they must be musicians to make the figures keep time in the dances; and, again, they must be carvers, for it won’t pay to put the figures out to be done. I had ten pounds the other day only to carve six figures, and the wood only come to three shillings; that’ll give you some idea of what the carving costs.
“Formerly I used to make the round of the watering-places, but I’ve got quite enough to do in London now, and travelling’s very expensive, for the eating and drinking is so very expensive. Now, at Ramsgate I’ve had to pay half-a-guinea for a bed, and that to a man in my position is more than I like. I always pays the man who goes along with me to play the music, because I don’t go out every day, only when it suits me. He gets as good as his twenty-three shillings a-week, according to how business is, and that’s on an average as good as four shillings a-day. If I’m very lucky I makes it better for him, for a man can’t be expected to go and blow his life away into pandean pipes unless he’s well paid for it.”
Guy Fawkeses.
Until within the last ten or twelve years, the exhibition of guys in the public thoroughfares every 5th of November, was a privilege enjoyed exclusively by boys of from 10 to 15 years of age, and the money arising therefrom was supposed to be invested at night in a small pyrotechnic display of squibs, crackers, and catherine-wheels.
At schools, and at many young gentlemen’s houses, for at least a week before the 5th arrived, the bonfires were prepared and guys built up.
At night one might see rockets ascending in the air from many of the suburbs of London, and the little back-gardens in such places as the Hampstead-road and Kennington, and, after dusk, suddenly illuminated with the blaze of the tar-barrel, and one might hear in the streets even banging of crackers mingled with the laughter and shouts of boys enjoying the sport.
In those days the street guys were of a very humble character, the grandest of them generally consisting of old clothes stuffed up with straw, and carried in state upon a kitchen-chair. The arrival of the guy before a window was announced by a juvenile chorus of “Please to remember the 5th of November.” So diminutive, too, were some of these guys, that I have even seen dolls carried about as the representatives of the late Mr. Fawkes. In fact, none of these effigies were hardly ever made of larger proportions than Tom Thumb, or than would admit of being carried through the garden-gates of any suburban villa.
Of late years, however, the character of Guy Fawkes-day has entirely changed. It seems now to partake rather of the nature of a London May-day. The figures have grown to be of gigantic stature, and whilst clowns, musicians, and dancers have got to accompany them in their travels through the streets, the traitor Fawkes seems to have been almost laid aside, and the festive occasion taken advantage of for the expression of any political feeling, the guy being made to represent any celebrity of the day who has for the moment offended against the opinions of the people. The kitchen-chair has been changed to the costermongers’ donkey-truck, or even vans drawn by pairs of horses. The bonfires and fireworks are seldom indulged in; the money given to the exhibitors being shared among the projectors at night, the same as if the day’s work had been occupied with acrobating or nigger singing.