After recounting the misdoings of “Lady Holland’s mob,” the paragraphist tells his readers that:—
“The elegant part of the entertainment was confined to a few booths. At the Lock and Key, near Cloth Fair, a select company performed the musical opera of the Poor Soldier, with Columbine’s escape from Smithfield. Mr. Flockton, whose name can never be struck off Bartholomew roll, had a variety of entertainments without and within. The King’s conjuror, who takes more money from out the pocket than he puts in, made the lank-haired gentry scratch their pates; the walking French puppet-show had hired an apartment, with additional performers; Punch and the Devil, in his little moving theatre, were performing without doors, to invite the company into the grand theatre. Men with wooden mummies in show-boxes were found straggling about the fair; tall women in cellars, dropping upon their knees to be kissed by short customers; dwarfs mounted on stools for the same civil purposes; and men without arms writing with their feet.”
The sneering tone, and the disposition to write down the fair, perceptible in this account, are more strongly exhibited in the ‘Public Advertiser’ of the 5th of September, in the following year:—
“Saturday being Bartholomew Fair day, it was, according to annual custom, ushered in by Lady Holland’s Mob, accompanied with a charming band of music, consisting of marrow-bones and cleavers, tin kettles, &c., &c., much to the gratification of the inhabitants about Smithfield; great preparations were then made for the reception of the Lord Mayor, the Sheriffs, and other City officers, who, after regaling themselves with a cool tankard at Mr. Akerman’s, made their appearance in the fair about one o’clock, to authorise mimic fools to make real ones of the gaping spectators. The proclamation being read, and the Lord Mayor retiring, he was saluted by a flourish of trumpets, drums, rattles, salt-boxes, and other delightful musical instruments. The noted Flockton, and the notorious Jobson, with many new managers, exhibited their tragic and comic performers, as did Penley his drolls. There were wild beasts from all parts of the world roaring, puppets squeaking, sausages frying, Kings and Queens raving, pickpockets diving, round-abouts twirling, hackney coaches and poor horses driving, and all Smithfield alive-o! The Learned Horse paid his obedience to the company, as did about a score of monkeys, several beautiful young ladies of forty, Punches, Pantaloons, Harlequins, Columbines, three giants, a dwarf, and a giantess. These were not all who came to Smithfield to gratify the public; there were several sleight-of-hand men and fire-eaters; the last, however, were not quite so numerous as those who eat of the deliciously flavoured sausages and oysters with which the fair abounded. The company were remarkably genteel and crowded, and the different performances went off with loud and unbounded bursts of applause; they will be repeated this day and to-morrow for the last times this season.” Reports similar in tone to the foregoing continued to appear in the newspapers for many years.
That the fairs were visited at and from this time almost exclusively by the lower orders of society is tolerably obvious from the fact that, though the number and variety of the shows were greater, and advertising was more largely resorted to every year as a medium of publicity, the showmen had ceased to use the columns of the London press for this purpose. Bills were given away in the fair, or displayed on the outsides of the shows, but few of these have been preserved, though the few extant are the only memorials of the London fairs during several years.
The only bill of 1787 which I have succeeded in finding announces a dwarf with the remarkable name of Kelham Whiteland; he is said to have been born at Ipswich, but his height, strange to say, is not stated, a blank being left before the word inches. Probably he was growing, and his exhibitor deemed it advisable, as a matter of financial economy, to have a large number of bills printed at one time.
Flockton, who was the leading showman of this period, was the sole advertiser of 1789, when he put forth the following announcement:—
“Mr. Flockton’s Most Grand and Unparallelled Exhibition. Consisting, first, in the display of the Original and Universally admired Italian Fantoccini, exhibited in the same Skilful and Wonderful Manner, as well as Striking Imitations of Living Performers, as represented and exhibited before the Royal Family, and the most illustrious Characters in this Kingdom. Mr. Flockton will display his inimitable Dexterity of Hand, Different from all pretenders to the said Art. To which will be perform’d an ingenious and Spirited Opera called The Padlock. Principal vocal performers, Signor Giovanni Orsi and Signora Vidina. The whole to conclude with his grand and inimitable Musical Clock, at first view, a curious organ, exhibited three times before their Majesties.”
In this clock nine hundred figures were said to be shown at work at various trades.
In the following year, two wonderful rams were exhibited in Bartholomew Fair. One of them had a single horn, growing from the centre of the forehead, like the unicorn of the heralds; the other had six legs. One of the principal shows of this year was advertised as “the Original Theatre (Late the celebrated Yates and Shuter, of facetious Memory), Up the Greyhound Inn Yard, the only real and commodious place for Theatrical Performances. The Performers selected from the most distinguished Theatres in England, Scotland, &c. The Representation consists of an entirely New Piece, called, The Spaniard Well Drub’d, or the British Tar Victorious.” This clap-trap drama concluded with “a Grand Procession of the King, French Heroes, Guards, Municipal Troops, &c., to the Champ de Mars, to swear to the Revolution Laws, as established by the Magnificent National Assembly, on the 14th of July, 1790.” There was “hornpipe dancing by the renowned Jack Bowling,” and an “Olio of wit, whim, and fancy, in Song, Speech, and Grimace.”