‘The modus operandi of running a side show is as follows:—The manager has a two-horse waggon, into which he packs his canvas and traps. He starts off early in the morning, so as to reach the town in which the circus is to exhibit about an hour before the procession is made. He drives to the lot, and in less than an hour every preparation has been completed and the side show commences, with the “blower” taking his position at the door of the entrance, and in a stentorian voice expatiating at large upon what is to be seen within for the small sum of ten cents; sometimes the admission is twenty-five cents. The term “blower” is given to this individual because he talks so much and tells a great deal more than what proves to be true. A crowd always gathers about a circus lot early in the morning, and many a nimble tenpence is picked up before the procession is made in town. When that is over and has reached the lot, an immense crowd gathers around to see the pitching of the big canvas, and from them many drop in to see the side show. As soon as the big show opens for the afternoon performance the “kid” show, as the side show is called, shuts up and does not open again until about five minutes before the big show is out. Then the “blower” mounts a box or anything that is handy, and goes at it with a will, “blowing” and taking in the stamps at the same time. This is kept up for about half an hour, by which time all have gone in that can, while the rest have departed. The side show entertainment lasts about half an hour, when the doors are closed and remain so until the evening performance of the big show is over. And then, with a huge torch-ball blazing each side of him, the “blower” commences. This torch ball consists of balls of cotton wicking, such as was used in olden times for oil lamps; having been soaked well in alcohol and lighted, it is fixed upon an iron rod, about six feet long, which is placed upright in the ground and the ball will burn for half an hour or more; two balls will make the whole neighbourhood nearly as light as day.
‘The receipts from some side shows reach over $150 a day, and with the larger concerns a still greater amount than this is taken. I know of a side show that travelled with a circus company through Vermont and the Canadas, about ten years ago, that actually came home in the fall with more money than the circus had; not that it took more money, but it did a big business, and had little or no expense. The side show belonged to the manager of the big show, and consisted of a couple of snakes, a cage of monkeys, and a deformed negro wench, who was represented as a wild woman, caught by a party of slaves in the swamps of Florida. While the big show did a poor business the “kid” show made money. Some of the circus managers do not dispose of the side show privilege, but run it themselves. Then, again, the manager of the big show rents out what is called the “concert privilege;” that is, the right of giving a minstrel entertainment within the canvas of the big show as soon as the regular afternoon and evening performances are over. This consists of a regular first part and variety minstrel entertainment, given by the circus performers, who can either play some musical instrument or dance; occasionally some of the ladies of the company dance. The show lasts about three quarters of an hour, and the charge is twenty-five cents. The clown announces to the audience, just before the big show is over, that the entertainment will be given immediately after, and those who wish to witness it can keep their seats. Several parties then skirmish among the assembled multitude and cry “tickets for the concert, twenty-five cents,” and just before the entertainment commences the tickets are collected.’
New York and New Orleans are provided with permanent buildings in which circus performances are given during the winter by companies which travel in the tenting season. At the New York Amphitheatre the company comprises some of the best equestrians and gymnasts, American and European, whose services can be secured, such as Robert Stickney, William Conrad (who, with his brother, will be remembered by many as gymnasts at the Alhambra), and Joe Pentland, one of the oldest and best clowns in the Union. The stud comprises between forty and fifty horses, all used in turn in the ring, as the summer campaign is made by rail, and only the principal towns are visited. Mr Lent is lessee and manager in New York.
The New Orleans Amphitheatre combines a menagerie with its circus attractions, and is owned by C. T. Ames. There are twelve camels attached to it, and a ‘mio,’ whatever that may be, the animal being as unknown to naturalists, by that name at least, as the ‘vedo’ of Sanger’s circus. Lucille Watson, now with Barnum’s company, was previously a member of the New Orleans troupe.
CHAPTER XIV.
Reminiscences of a Gymnast—Training and Practising—A Professional Rendezvous—Circus Agencies—The First Engagement—Springthorp’s Music-hall—Newsome’s Circus—Reception in the Dressing-room—The Company and the Stud—The Newsome Family—Miss Newsome’s Wonderful Leap across a green lane—The Handkerchief Trick—An Equine Veteran from the Crimea—Engagement to travel.
The picture of circus life and manners which I have endeavoured to portray would not be complete without a narrative of the professional experiences of the performers engaged in circuses. I shall next, therefore, present the reminiscences of a gymnast, as I heard them related a few years ago by one who has since retired from the avocation; and I shall endeavour to do so, as nearly as may be possible, in his own words.
‘I was not born and bred a circus man, as most of them are—Alf Burgess, for instance, who was born, as I may say, in the saw-dust, and brought up on the back of a horse. Neither was my partner. He was a clerk in the advertising department of a London evening newspaper, and I was an apprentice in a London printing-office, and not quite out of my time, when we went in for gymnastics at the Alhambra gymnasium. My partner was practising the flying trapeze, and was just beginning to do his flights with confidence, when that poor fellow fell, and broke his back, at the Canterbury, and the proprietors of the London music-halls set their faces against the flying trapeze, and would not engage gymnasts for it. In consequence of that, he had to drop the flying trapeze, and practise for the fixed trapeze; and, as the single trapeze doesn’t draw, he began to look out for a partner, to do it double. Price was looking out for a partner at the same time, but, as he was more advanced in his training than Fred was, and was not disposed to wait till he was proficient, he took Joe Welsh,—Alhambra Joe, as he used to be called,—and Fred had to look out for somebody else.
‘The partnership of the Brothers Price, as they called themselves, did not last long; for Price dropped in for a slice of luck, in the shape of a thumping legacy,—twenty thousand pounds, I have heard,—and then he turned up the profession, and Joe Welsh went in for the long flight. In the mean time, I had made up my mind to follow Fred’s example, and to be his partner; and, besides fixing up the ropes for the flying rings in my grandmother’s orchard at Norwood, for practice on Sundays, we took our fakements nearly every evening to the “ruins,” as they were called, in Victoria Street. Do you know where I mean?’
I did know the place, and remembered that it conveyed the idea that a Metropolitan Improvement Commission’s notions of street improvements consisted in demolishing some three or four hundred houses, and creating a wilderness of unfinished houses, yawning chasms, and heaps of rubbish. The place remained in that condition for several years, and was the rendezvous and free gymnasium of most of the gymnasts, acrobats, rope-dancers, and other professors of muscular sensationalism in the metropolis.