Not only are all these works of art exhibited gratis by the public-spirited habiters of Chatham Street and the Bowery, but they have an infinity of other exhibitions, which cannot be classified as either gratuitous, theatrical or amphitheatrical, to see which a fee is demanded, moderate but peremptory, trifling but inevitable.
These consist principally of ferocious beasts captured by heroic men, and brought from their native fastnesses to astonish the city people—of deformed and monstrous beings which should be human, but whom nature has sent into the world destitute of arms or legs, or vital organs, the lack of which makes these curtailed individuals objects of wonder, of mystery, and of three-cent speculation—and of various animals, human and otherwise, trained to perform unheard of feats of strength, agility, or juggling sleight.
The whereabouts of these interesting prodigies is made known by huge paintings on nobody-knows-how-many square yards of canvass; and generally by a decrepit hurdy-gurdy played in a masterly manner by the enterprising proprietor, who occasionally varies his performance by reciting at the top of his voice the leading attractions of his exhibitions, and extending to the bystanders a general invitation to walk in, and get their money's worth.
Reader, whose dainty musical and dramatic tastes, our theatrical and operatic managers fail to gratify; who have laughed your fill at Burton, and at Forrester; who have tired of Vestvali, Steffanone, D'Ormy, and the rest; who have grown sick of Badiali, impatient of Brignoli, and tired of both; who have ceased to interest yourself in the "Happy Family" either at the Academy of Music or at Barnam's; whose sickened ear is fatigued with the burnt-cork lyrics of Christy, Buckley, and their sooty accomplices in questionable harmonies; you, who know every inch in the circle of fashionable amusement, and long for some novelty to break the monotony of the tedious track; pray discard the Shanghae coat, don a more sensible and less noticeable garb, step from the Broadway sphere to the Bowery precincts, and there look upon wonders hitherto unknown, and which will heartily astonish your bewildered optics.
Let us begin with the Anacondas, and the "only living Rhinoceros;" let me speak, and you hold your breath, and marvel.
Pause ere you enter the apartment containing these prodigies of Natural History—these dread-inspiring denizens of the mighty rivers and impenetrable morasses of the tropics, examine carefully the gorgeous painting which decks the outside of the building.
How majestic in design! how masterly in the execution! Criticism is silent, and we can only speak to commend.
Observe the brilliancy of the coloring; the vivid red and yellow spots upon the serpents, which wind their powerful folds about that noble charger—(you thought it was a windmill? No, Sir! I have inspected it carefully, and I am positive it is intended for a horse.)
See with what an air of stolid placidity, and sleepy complacency, his rider, the gallant Indian Chief (you took him for the "Fat Boy"?—the mistake is perhaps excusable, but it is not the "Fat Boy,") draws his arrow to the head to pierce the slimy monster; (arrow? you imagined it a fish pole? wrong, my friend, palpably wrong, the instrument may suggest fish-pole, but it is undoubtedly meant for arrow;) whose tail, the artist, with a noble disregard of the principles of perspective which stamps him as an original genius, has caused to rest upon a mountain twenty miles in the distance.
Notice how the other monstrous reptile has twined himself in the branches of the palm-tree—(it looks like a hickory-broom. No, sir! "it is no such thing"—it is most emphatically a tree—) and with his fiery tongue thrust from his gaping jaws, (of course it's a tongue, and you need not assert that it resembles a barber's pole with the end split up, for it doesn't,) is about to make a frightful descent upon the other steed. (Another horse? Yes, sir! another horse, although you assert it to be meant for a cider barrel on a three-legged stool.)