All day long groups of Cup-tie trippers stand about the Sleeping Beauty, not only for her sake, but also for the sake of Madame Tussaud, whose figure stands at Madame St. Amaranthe’s head, while at her feet sits William Cobbett, wearing his old beaver hat, and holding in his hand the snuff-box which legend credits him with passing to visitors on some weird occasions.
Men from Oldham naturally show special interest in Cobbett, who was, in his day, Member of Parliament for that town.
Cobbett sits on a red upholstered ottoman, with room enough for two other persons, and on a certain Cup-tie day two travel-stained, tired men sat down by him, and, noticing that he moved his head from side to side, took him to be alive. They addressed questions to him, and jumped up very hurriedly as he jerked his head and looked blankly at them through his horn spectacles.
The only two figures in the Exhibition that make any pretence of life are William Cobbett and the Sleeping Beauty.
A wonderful self-made man was Cobbett, who began life as a living scarecrow, armed with a shotgun, in the employment of a farmer, and, after being, among other things, sergeant-major won a great reputation as a writer of English prose and attained the distinction of adding M.P. to his name in those days when Parliamentary honours were less easily achieved than they are to-day.
To be sure, the figures of statesmen have always interested Cup-tie crowds, for the provincial is much more of a politician than the Londoner.
So also literary men like Scott, Dickens, Tennyson, Burns, and Kipling come in for much attention; more, perhaps, than portraits of the clergy.
Sportsmen, too, such as W. G. Grace, Fred Archer, and “Tommy Lipton”—the last-mentioned for his America Cup performances—receive enough notice on Cup-tie days to maintain a good average of appreciation for the year.
As on Bank Holidays, so on Cup-tie days, there are always many more live than wax figures in the Chamber of Horrors from morning till night. Indeed, I have seen the place so crowded that it was difficult to distinguish the effigies from the awestricken observers.
Sometimes I have taken a walk round the Exhibition after it was closed on the night of the Cup-tie to see that all was right. Once I was called in haste to the Chamber of Horrors, where a stranger had been found asleep in a dark corner. After he had been roused and escorted outside, the scared fellow made off as if he had had the hangman at his heels. A return ticket from Bolton was picked up where he had lain. But the man from Bolton had bolted, and did not return to claim the ticket.