John Clarke, an elderly, gentlemanly-looking showman, whom I saw a few years afterwards “mountebanking” on a piece of waste land at Norwood, and whose memory, in spite of his infirmity of temper, is cherished by the existing generation of equestrians and acrobats, was here with his circus, a large show, with its back against the side of Samwell’s, and its front in a line with Hosier Lane, and therefore looking towards Smithfield Bars. The admission to this show was sixpence. The spacious platform outside was lighted with gas, a distinction from the other shows in the fair which extended to the interior, where a single hoop, about two feet six inches in diameter, with little jets of gas about an inch and a half apart, was suspended over the arena.
“The entertainment,” says Hone, “commenced by a man dancing on the tight rope. The rope was removed and a light bay horse was mounted by a female in trousers, with a pink gown fully frilled, flounced, and ribboned, with the shoulders in large puffs. While the horse circled the ring at full speed, she danced upon him, and skipped with a hoop like a skipping-rope; she performed other dexterous feats, and concluded by dancing on the saddle with a flag in each hand, while the horse flew round the ring with great velocity. These and the subsequent performances were enlivened by tunes from a clarionet and horn, and jokes from a clown, who, when she had concluded, said to an attendant, ‘Now, John, take the horse off, and whatever you do, rub him down well with a cabbage.’ Then a man rode and danced on another horse, a very fine animal, and leaped from him three times over garters, placed at a considerable height and width apart, alighting on the horse’s back while he was going round. This rider was remarkably dexterous.
“In conclusion, the clown got up, and rode with many antic tricks, till, on the sudden, an apparently drunken fellow rushed from the audience into the ring, and began to pull the clown from the horse. The manager interfered, and the people cried, ‘Turn him out;’ but the man persisted, and the clown getting off, offered to help him up, and threw him over the horse’s back to the ground. At length the intruder was seated, with his face to the tail, though he gradually assumed a proper position, and, riding as a man thoroughly intoxicated would ride, fell off; he then threw off his hat and great coat, and his waistcoat, and then an under waistcoat, and a third, and a fourth, and more than a dozen waistcoats. Upon taking off the last, his trousers fell down, and he appeared in his shirt; whereupon he crouched, and drawing his shirt off in a twinkling, appeared in a handsome fancy dress, leaped into the saddle, rode standing with great grace, received great applause, made his bows, and so the performance concluded.”
The remainder of the shows of this class charged a penny only for admission. Of Samwell’s, Hone says,—“I paid my penny to the money-taker, a slender ‘fine lady,’ with three feathers in a ‘jewelled turban,’ and a dress of blue and white muslin, and silver; and within-side I saw the ‘fat, contented, easy’ proprietor, who was arrayed in corresponding magnificence. If he loved leanness, it was in ‘his better half,’ for himself had none of it. Obesity had disqualified him for activity, and therefore in his immensely tight and large satin jacket, he was, as much as possible, the active commander of his active performers. He superintended the dancing of a young female on the tight rope. Then he announced ‘A little boy will dance a horn-pipe on the rope,’ and he ordered his ‘band’ inside to play; this was obeyed without difficulty, for it merely consisted of one man, who blew a hornpipe tune on a Pan’s-pipe; while it went on, the little boy danced on the tight rope; so far it was a hornpipe dance, and no farther. ‘The little boy will stand on his head on the rope,’ said the manager; and the little boy stood on his head accordingly. Then another female danced on the slack wire; and after her came a horse, not a dancing horse, but a ‘learned’ horse, quite as learned as the horse at Ball’s theatre.”
At the show last mentioned was a man who balanced chairs on his chin, and holding a knife in his mouth, balanced a sword on the edge of the knife; he then put a pewter plate on the hilt of the sword horizontally, and so balanced the sword with the plate on the edge of the knife as before, the plate having previously had imparted to it a rotary motion, which it communicated to the sword, and preserved during the balance. He also balanced the sword and plate in like manner, with a crown-piece placed edge-wise between the point of the sword and the knife; and afterwards with two crown-pieces, and then with a key. These feats were accompanied by the jokes and grimaces of a clown, and succeeded by an acrobatic performance by boys, and a hornpipe by the lady of the company. Then a learned horse was introduced, and, as desired by his master, indicated a lady who wished to be married, a gentleman who preferred a quart of ale to a sermon, a lady who liked lying in bed when she should be up, and other persons of various proclivities amusing to the rest of the spectators.
Chappell and Pike’s was a very large show, fitted up after the manner of Richardson’s, with a parade, on which a clown and several acrobats in tights and trunks, and young ladies in ballet costume, alternately promenaded and danced, until the interior filled, and the performances commenced. These consisted of tumbling, slack-rope dancing, etc., as at Ball’s, but better executed. The names of these showmen do not appear again in the records of the London fairs, from which it may be inferred that the show was a new venture, and failed. There was a performer named Chappell in the company of Richardson’s theatre, while under the management of Nelson Lee; but whether related to the showman of 1825 I am unable to say.
The performances of “Brown’s Grand Troop, from Paris,” commenced with an exhibition of conjuring; among other tricks, the conjurer gave a boy beer to drink out of a funnel, making him blow through it to show that it was empty, and afterwards applying it to each of the boy’s ears, from whence, through the funnel, the beer appeared to reflow, and poured on the ground. Afterwards girls danced on the single and double slack wire, and a melancholy-looking clown, among other things, said they were “as clever as the barber and blacksmith who shaved magpies at twopence a dozen.” The show concluded with a learned horse.
The menageries of Wombwell and Atkins were two of the largest shows in the fair. The back of the former abutted on the side of Chappell and Pike’s theatre, on the north side of Smithfield, with the front looking towards Giltspur Street, at which avenue it was the first show. The front was entirely covered with painted show-cloths representing the animals, with the proprietor’s name in immense letters above, and the inscription, “The Conquering Lion,” very conspicuously displayed. There were other show-cloths along the whole length of the side, surmounted by this inscription, stretching out in one line of large capital letters, “Nero and Wallace, the same lions that fought at Warwick.” One of the front show-cloths represented the second fight; a lion stood up, with a bleeding dog in his mouth, and his left fore paw resting upon another dog. A third dog was in the act of flying at him ferociously, and one, wounded and bleeding, was retreating. There were seven other show-cloths on this front, with the inscription “Nero and Wallace” between them. One of these show-cloths, whereon the monarch of the forest was painted, was inscribed, “Nero, the Great Lion, from Caffraria.”
Wombwell’s collection comprised at this time four lions and a lioness, two leopardesses, with cubs, a hyena, a bitch wolf and cubs, a polar bear, a pair of zebras, two onagers or wild asses, and a large assortment of monkeys and exotic birds. The bills announced “a remarkably fine tigress in the same den with a noble British lion;” but Hone notes that this conjunction, the announcement of which was probably suggested by the attractiveness of the lion-tiger cubs and their parents in Atkins’s menagerie, was not to be seen in reality. The combats at Warwick produced a strong desire on the part of the public to see the lions who had figured in them, and the menagerie was crowded each day from morn till night. “Manchester Jack” entered Nero’s cage, and invited the visitors to follow, which many ventured to do, paying sixpence for the privilege, on his assurance that they might do so with perfect safety.
Hone complains of the confusion and disorder which prevailed, and which are inseparable from a crowd, and may be not uncharitably suspected of being exaggerated in some degree by the evident prejudice which had been created in his mind by the lion-baitings at Warwick. It is certain, however, that gardens like those of the Zoological Society afford conditions for the health and comfort of the animals, and for their exhibition to the public, much more favourable than can be obtained in the best regulated travelling caravan, or in buildings such as the Tower menagerie and Exeter Change. It is impossible to do justice to animals which are cooped within the narrow limits of a travelling show, or in any place which does not admit of thorough ventilation. Apart from the impracticability of allowing sufficient space and a due supply of air, a considerable amount of discomfort to the animals is inseparable from continuous jolting about the country in caravans, and from the braying of brass bands and the glare of gas at evening exhibitions.