To return to Derby, we find that, in 1734, a second “flyer” visited the town. He was much older than the first performer, and less in stature. “His coat,” we are told, “was in deshabille: no waistcoat; his shirt and his shoes the worse for wear; his hat, worth three-pence, exclusive of the band, which was packthread, bleached white by the weather; and a black string supplied the place of buttons to his waistband. He wisely considered, if his performances did not exceed the other’s, he might as well stay at home, if he had one. His rope, therefore, from the same steeple, extended to the bottom of St. Mary’s-gate, more than twice the former length. He was to draw a wheel-barrow after him, in which was a boy of thirteen. After this surprising performance, an ass was to fly down, armed as before, with a breast-plate, and at each foot a lump of lead about half a hundred. The man, the barrow, and its contents arrived safe at the end of their journey. When the vast multitude turned their eyes towards the ass, which had been braying several days at the top of the steeple for food; but, like many a lofty courtier for a place, brayed in vain; the slackness of the rope, and the great weight of the animal and his apparatus, made it seem, at setting off, as if he were falling perpendicularly. The appearance was tremendous! About twenty yards before he reached the gates of the county-hall, the rope broke. From the velocity acquired by the descent, he bore down all before him. A whole multitude was overwhelmed; nothing was heard but dreadful cries; nor seen, but confusion. Legs and arms went to destruction. In this dire calamity, the ass, which maimed others, was unhurt himself, having a pavement of soft bodies to roll over. No lives were lost. As the rope broke near the top, it brought down both chimneys and people at the other end of the street. This dreadful catastrophe put a period to the art of flying. It prevented the operator from making the intended collection; and he sneaked out of Derby as poor as he sneaked in.”
The clergy in Derby, in years agone, appear to have enjoyed popular shows. When Topham, the celebrated strong man, visited the town, in 1737, he performed, among other feats, the following: “He took Mr. Chambers, vicar of All Saints’, who weighed 27 stones, and raised him with one hand. His head being laid on one chair and his feet on another, four people, 14 stones each, sat upon his body, which he heaved at pleasure. He struck a round bar of iron, one inch diameter, against his naked arm, and, at one stroke, bent it like a bow. Weakness and feeling seemed fled together. Being a Master of music, he entertained the company with Mad Tom. He sung a solo to the organ in St. Werburgh’s church, then the only one in Derby; but though he might perform with judgment, yet the voice, more terrible than sweet, scarcely seemed human. Though of a pacific temper, and with the appearance of a gentleman, yet he was liable to the insults of the rude. The hostler at the Virgin’s Inn, where he resided, having given him disgust, he took one of the kitchen spits from the mantel-piece, and bent it round his neck like a handkerchief; but as he did not choose to tuck the ends in the hostler’s bosom, the cumbrous ornament excited the laugh of the company, till he condescended to untie the iron cravat.”
In 1600, Banks, and his famous horse, Morocco, ascended to the top of St. Paul’s. The animal was made to override the vane, much to the astonishment of a large gathering of Londoners. It is related in one of the “Jest Books” of the period that a servant came to his master, who was walking about the middle aisle of the church, to ask him to go and witness the wonderful performance. “Away with you, fool!” answered the gentleman, “what need I go so far to see a horse on the top, when I can see so many asses at the bottom?” In France, Banks and his horse attracted much attention. At Orleans, we are told, the fame they had obtained brought Banks under the imputation of a sorcerer, and he narrowly escaped being burnt at the stake. According to Bishop Morton, Banks cleared himself by commanding his horse to “seek out one in the press of the people who had a crucifix on his hat; which done, he bade him kneel down unto it, and not this only, but also to rise up again, and to kiss it. ‘And now, gentlemen,’ (quoth he), ‘I think my horse hath acquitted both me and himself;’ and so his adversaries rested satisfied, conceiving (as it might seem) that the devil had no power to come near the cross.” It is stated by several writers that Banks and his horse were burned to death at Rome, “as subjects of the Black Power of the World, by the order of the Pope.” Other writers assert that he was living in the days of King Charles as a jolly vintner in Cheapside.
The most serious results of permitting acrobats to perform on churches remain to be recorded. It is related by Raine that, in 1237, Prior Melsonby was elected Bishop of Durham, and that his mitre was taken from him for encouraging a rope dancer to perform his feats on a cord stretched between the towers of the cathedral. The poor fellow fell and broke his neck.
