Circus Life and Circus Celebrities

by Thomas Frost

‘While we were at Carlisle, Hubert Mears was starring with us for a short time, doing the flying trapeze, and doing it, too, as well as ever I have seen it done. After him, we had Sadi Jalma, “the serpent of the desert,” for a time, and very serpent-like his contortions are; he can wriggle in and out the rounds of a ladder or a chair like an eel. He is like the acrobats that I once heard a couple of small boys holding a discussion about, one maintaining that they had no bones, and the other that their bones were made of gutta percha. He calls himself a Persian prince, but I don’t believe he is any relation to the Shah. He may be a Persian, for there are Arab, Hindoo, Chinese, and Japanese acrobats and jugglers knocking about over England, as well as Frenchmen, Germans, and Italians; but nationalities are as often assumed as names, and he may be no more a Persian than I am a Spaniard.

‘It is a praiseworthy custom of Newsome, to devote one night’s receipts to the charities of every town which he visits. It would require more time than he has to spare to make the inquiries and calculations that would be necessary before a stranger could distribute the money among the several institutions, so as to effect the greatest amount of good; and it is placed for that purpose at the disposal of the Mayor. The amount of money which he has thus given for the relief of the sick, the infirm, and the indigent during the time his circus has been travelling would have been a fortune in itself, if he had put it into his own pocket. He divides the year between four towns, and in one year he gave two hundred pounds to the charities of Preston, and forty pounds to the Seamen’s Orphans’ Asylum at Liverpool, besides what he gave to the similar institutions of the other towns which he visited that year.

‘Our next move was to Middlesborough, where a very laughable incident occurred. A party of us ferried over to Stockton one day, and went into a public-house there for refreshment. Circus men are always courted and sought after, as soldiers are in a place where they are only occasionally seen; and, as soon as we were recognised by the Stockton men in the room as belonging to the circus, there was a great disposition shown to treat us, and to get into conversation with us. Well, a short time afterwards, one of those men came over to Middlesborough, to see the circus again, and, after the performance, he went into a public-house where he recognized Sam Sault, a gymnast from Manchester, who had lately joined us, and insisted upon treating him. Sam had no objection to be treated, and the Stockton man was elated with the opportunity of showing that he was acquainted with a circus man. So one glass followed another until the Stockton man became, all at once, helplessly drunk. Sam, who retained the use of his limbs, and some glimmering of reason, good-naturedly took his drunken friend to his lodging to save him from being turned out of the public-house, and then locked up by the police. He had no sooner reached his lodgings, and helped the drunken man up the stairs, however, than he felt a doubt as to the safety of his purse; and, on immediately thrusting his hand into his pocket, he found that it was gone. He reflected as well as he was able, and came to the conclusion that he must have left it on the parlour table at the public-house. Depositing his helpless companion upon the sofa, he ran down-stairs, and rushed off to the tavern, where, by great good fortune, he found his purse on the chair on which he had been sitting, where he had placed it, it seems, when he thought he had returned it to his pocket.

‘While he was at the public-house Joe Ridley and I, and my partner, who lodged in the same house with Sam Sault, returned to our lodging, and found the drunken man asleep on the sofa, smelling horribly of gin and tobacco smoke, and snoring like a fat hog. We looked at the fellow in surprise, wondering who he was, and how he came to be there. Neither of us recognized him as any one we had seen before. Then the question was raised,—What should we do with him. “Throw him out of the window,” says Joe Ridley. “Take him down into the yard and pump on him,” says Fred. “No, let us paint his face,” says I. So I got some carmine, and Fred got some burnt cork, and we each painted him to our own fancy till he looked like an Ojibbeway in his war-paint. By that time Sam Sault got back from the public-house, and found us laughing heartily at the queer figure cut by the recumbent Stocktonian.

‘“Oh, if he is a friend of yours, we’ll wipe it off,” says I, when Sam had explained how the man came to be there.

‘“Oh, let it be,” says Sam,“ and let him be where he is; we’ll turn him out in the morning, without his knowing what a beauty you have made him, and that will serve him right for giving me so much trouble.”

‘So the fellow was left snoring on the sofa till morning, when, it appears, he woke before we were about, and, finding himself in a strange place, walked down-stairs, and quitted the house. We never saw him again, but we often laughed as we thought of the figure the man must have cut as he stalked into Stockton, and how he must have been laughed at by his mates and the people he met on his way.

‘From Middlesborough we went to York, where the circus stood on St George’s Field, an open space between the castle and the Ouse. About that time, Webster Vernon left the company, and was succeeded as ring-master by a gentleman named Vivian, who was quite new to the profession, and whose adoption of it added another to the changes which he had already known, though he was still quite a young man. He had been a lawyer’s clerk, then a photographic colourist, and afterwards an actor; and was a quiet, gentlemanly fellow, unlike the majority of circus men, who are generally a fast, slangy set. He had married early, and his wife, who was an actress, had an engagement in London—a frequent cause of temporary separation among those whose business it is to amuse the public, whether their lines lie in circuses, theatres, or music-halls. Joe Ridley’s wife was in London, and Sam Sault had left his better half in Manchester. Franks, and Adams, and old Zamezou, and Jem Ridley, and the head groom had their wives with them; but two of the five were connected with the circus, Adams’s wife taking money at the gallery entrance, and the groom’s riding in entrées.

‘How did we do ballets? Well, they were ballets d‘ action, such as used to be done at the music-halls by the Lauri family, and more lately by Fred Evans and troupe. The Paynes starred in them at one time, but generally they were done by the regular members of the company, usually by Alf Burgess, and Funny Franks, and Joe Hogini, with Adele Newsome in the leading lady’s part, the subordinate characters being taken by Marie Newsome and Jane Adams, and my partner and I, and Charley Ducrow.

‘Who starred with us at this time, besides the Paynes? Well, there was Hassan, the Arab, who did vaulting and balancing feats, and his wife, who danced on the tight rope. He vaulted one night over a line of mounted dragoons from Fulwood barracks, turning a somersault over their heads and drawn sabres. Didn’t we have accidents in the ring sometimes? Well, none of a very serious character, and nearly all that happened in twelve months might be counted on the fingers of one hand. Coleman slipped off the bare back of a horse one night, and cut his hand with a sword. Burgess had a finger cut one night in catching the knives for his juggling act, which used to be thrown to him from the ring-doors while he was on the globe, and keeping it in motion with his feet. Adele Newsome was thrown one night, and pitched amongst the spectators, but received no injuries beyond a bruise or two. Lizzie Keys slipped off the pad one night, but came down comfortably on the sawdust, and wasn’t hurt at all. Fred fell from the trapeze once, and that was very near being the most serious accident of all. He fell head foremost, and was taken up insensible by the fellows at the ring-doors, and carried into the dressing-room. We thought his neck was broken, but Sam Sault, who had seen such accidents before, pulled his head right, and, when his senses came back to him, it did not appear that he was much the worse for the fall after all. Then my turn came. One night, when the performances were to commence with a vaulting act, I went to the circus so much more than half tight that I was advised on all sides to stand out of it, and Henry, the manager, very kindly said that I should be excused; but, with the obstinacy of men in that condition, and their usual belief that they are sober enough for anything, I persisted in going into the ring with the rest. What happened was just what might have been expected, and everybody but myself feared. Instead of clearing the horses I touched one of them, and, in consequence, instead of dropping on my feet, I was thrown upon my back; and that accident, with a violent attack of inflammation of the lungs, laid me up for two or three weeks, during which I was treated with great liberality by Newsome, and received many kindnesses from more than one of the good people of York.