tice on the sawdust. The Circus is so entirely changed from what it was some thirty or forty years ago, as to be almost a new institution to those who recollect the little mountebank parties that used to pay an annual visit to the village green, and delight the rustic sightseers of agricultural districts by giving away an occasional fat pig. There was nothing in those times to be compared to CHIRPER'S CIRCUS, in which I myself have really served. The huge travelling Circus of our day, such a one as that of the Brothers Chirper, may be looked upon as a colony, and the capital requisite to carry on a profitable business may be guessed from the fact, that about sixty horses are required to work a large concern, besides a den of lions, a brace of camels, and a tumbling elephant or two, to say nothing of half a dozen ostriches, a performing mule, a dancing bull, and a real live deer with movable horns! Then, in addition to a corps of about thirty male and female performers, including of course the inevitable Lion King or Queen, and no end of acrobats, voltigeurs, and Amazons, there must be a stud-groom, or 'master of the horse" (Circus people delight in fine language), and under him a score of stablemen. Then, there must be a tent-master and tenters, besides the agent in advance, the members of the brass band, the pair of bill-stickers, and the many other wonderfully nondescript hangers-on, who contrive to extract a living out of the concern. While out "tenting," as it is called, some ambitious showmen, not contented with the usual slow style of getting on, and to obtain additional notoriety, now indulge in a locomotive to drag them from town to town: thus making their grand entrée, preceded by what they term a real fiery dragon. The Messrs. Chirper were, so to speak, born showmen, as they came into the world at Greenwich Fair, and started in life with an exhibition of white mice. They travelled the country with all kinds of shows, growing from small to large, until now they are wealthy men, with a bank account, and the largest Circus on the road. Their "Magic Ring," as they have christened it, is on a gigantic scale, having all sorts of clever people attached, to minister to the amusement of its patrons, and it dispenses daily bread-and-butter to a party of one hundred and fifty-seven men, women, and children-if the young of showfolks ever are children-who are dependent on it. The Brothers Chirper, like most showmen, are pleasant fellows, not overburdened with the learning of the schools, but crammed to repletion with the sterner acquirements of dearbought experience of men and manners. Like all their class, the brothers are fond of diamonds one of them, showman-like, wears a hoop of brilliants that cost three hundred pounds. Why is it, I have often wondered, that all showmen are fond of diamonds? The show-folk are altogether a peculiar race, and, like the fishermen of our sea-coasts, are not prone to intermarry with other classes. I could not help noting that in our Circus company, forty-two of the persons engaged, were related by blood or marriage to the brothers. The behind the scenes of Circus-dom is a quaint enough region, and of course a contrast to the "front." There is always a slight soupçon of that peculiar zoological aroma indicative of the king of the forest. A great fire of coke burns brightly in a large iron funnel, placed in the centre of the vacant space (the extempore green-room); at the curtained door, where the company enter the ring; and round it, there loiters a crowd of performers, grooms, &c. Some of them have just made their exit from the sawdust; others are making ready to go in. The fire is of great use for ventilating purposes, for there is always uppermost a strong perfume of damp sawdust, wet litter, and horse-breath, with a faint indication of bad drainage and other horrors. The scene at the fire is motley enough. The lazy black servant, habited in the gorgeous oriental robe, is attentively chalking the pumps of Mademoiselle Aurelia, the tight-rope dancer and "ascensionist," who is adjusting her pink skirts preparatory to taking her "turn." A medical student is making hot love to Madame Francatelli, the lady-devil rider, who, as the bills tell us, "has been clothed with fame in all the capitals of Europe and Russia." The funny gentleman with the nodding queue, or tail-piece, as he calls it, looking waggishly over his whitened scalp, his nose buried in a pint of halfand-half, is one of the seven great clowns of the establishment-indeed, he is our leader-and motley is certainly his only wear, or, to borrow again from the bill, it is "that oracle of pungent satire, Mr. Henry White, surnamed the Modern Touchstone." One can easily surmise that Mr. White must have just given birth to something new in the joke line, and, in apt confirmation of my opinion, he offers the ring-master (that grand looking personage, elaborately got up as a field-marshal, who is of course in the confidence of the clown) the reversion of the pewter pot. All round the fiery furnace, in concentric rings, "the strength of the establishment" crowd for warmth, and are only at intervals disturbed in their banter by the manager's warning bell, or the more than ordinary bursts of laughter evoked by myself or some other clown. In front, all is ablaze with light and gaudy calico, and each acrobat and horseman seems to excel his neighbour in his leaps and bounds. The three hours of performance fly rapidly away, as artist after artist bounds into the ring. Trick acts, feats on the trapeze, revolving corkscrews, descending mercuries, in short, all the varied and puzzling acts of contortion incidental to the modern Circus are exhibited with a grace and dexterity, and with a firmness of nerve, which never fail to astonish. All is couleur de rose at night-an applauding audience and smiling performers make the work go off with spirit. In the daytime, the circus is dark, cold, and miserable; the fiery furnace has been carried into the centre of the ring, and most of the corps are again at work, practising; or, What are lovely woman's sparkling eyes for it is only by hard practice that the agility rilies-court, and so on.. Much of what is said, of the acrobats and horsemen can be kept up. however, is arranged on the spur of the mo Miss Caroline Crochett (name in the bill, Mdlle.ment; the clown gives the ring-master his cue as Salvadori de Medici) is being put through a they walk round following the horse; and at the new act by her uncle. She is dressed in a short next pause-there are at least two pauses to an ballet skirt, and has on a pair of light canvas act of horsemanship, for each scene is divided, shoes. She takes the various leaps with won- so to speak, into an exordium, an argument, derful precision, and only once does she miss and a peroration-the clown flies off in a verse her "tip." For a long hour, until both horse and or two of poetry about lady show signs of great fatigue, she is kept at her lesson; and at night the policy of this rehearsal is apparent, for none of the company are rewarded with louder plaudits than Malle. de Medici. In various quiet places of the ring, little boys are trying who can twist himself into the most fantastic shapes; their fathers, or the persons to whom they are apprenticed, superintending their tumbling, and sometimes joining in it. In another corner, Professor de Bondirini is practising his three sons for their drawingroom entertainment. One of them is only four years of age; he is the little fellow that comes on as a clown, and has so many oranges and sixpences thrown him. Already, he can tumble like a ten-year old; he made his début two years ago as Tom Thumb, and has performed all sorts of business from Cora's child, to being baked in a pie for the clown's dinner. How knowingly Tom Hughes glides down that rope, descending in slow time, whirling round and round. He is an ugly-looking fellow just now: "pock-pitted," and badly dressed; but at night with his "air" plastered with grease, and his clean white tights and close-fitting jacket, he will look graceful enough, appearing in the bills as the descending Mercury. Now is the time to find out the secrets of the prison-house; the face of that pale-looking youth in the rather fast Tweed suit haunts you no doubt no wonder; that is the lady who has been creating all the winter a great sensation. This wonderful feat of a man passing for many years as a handsome woman, although a great fact of Circus life, has never yet been publicly known. Neither is it publicly known that most of our best equestrians are Irishmen; all the great names familiar to the ring are Milesian in their sound, and the manners and speech of their possessors smack of the Emerald Isle. My own friend, the German Hercules, Herr Strasburg, is a Connemara man, and was picked up originally by a travelling Circus proprietor, who saw his great strength, and knew what, by a little art, could be made of it. Let me now speak of the art of getting up "wheezes," as the clown's jokes are called. It is a very simple affair. In the scenes to which I act as clown, I arrange my little patter with the ring-master. If I go in with Miss Caroline, I tell him first, that I will do the names of the streets; he takes his cue from that, and asks me some trifling question which brings out the names of all the principal streets in the town. Thus a desponding person ought to live in Hope-street, sir; a thief should have his house in Steel's-place; a lady who is fond of flowers should live in Rose-street; a humorist in Me : Scots wha hae wi Wallace bled, Rush to Ross the hatter's. At rehearsals there is usually a great consumption of beer, and any quantity of professional slang, with some talk about last Sunday's dinner, and speculation about roastpork for next Sunday. As to Blondin, or Léotard, all the men in the place, according to their own idea, are quite equal to him; and it is generally true that our Circus acrobats could walk on a tight-rope at any height if, as they say, they had the head-piece for it-it is all a matter of nerve. There have been far greater men in the profession than either Blondin or Léotard. The greatest I take to have been a pantomimist and acrobat-a professional of the far-back ancient time, who performed for love. The story is told by Herodotus. A certain king wishing to get his daughter married, several young princes disputed for the honour of her hand. One of them appeared to be a marvellous proficient in the pantomimic art. In his enthusiasm and desire to astonish the princess he outdid himself; for, after having represented all manner of passions with his hands, he stood upon his head and expressed his tenderness and despair in the most affecting manner by the movement of his legs. It was lately mentioned at a "crowner's quest," that in seven months there had been no fewer than seven violent deaths among acrobatic performers in the three kingdoms. But what of all that? The never-ending cry still resounds from all the shows of the country, "Walk up, walk up, ladies and gentlemen, this is the best booth in all the fair!" And accordingly on all sides there is a crowd of "talent" ready to feed the market; there is strong competition for employment even among acrobats and mountebanks. One man will stand against a board and allow a companion to surround him on all sides with naked daggers flung from a distance. Has not Mr. James Cooke written to the Era that he has "performed the astounding feat of throwing a somersault four times in the air before reaching the ground;" and is it not the life ambition of Signor Jerome Mascaroni to earn money by imitating the ape? Another man will balance himself, head downward, on a pole thirty feet high, and in that position drain a bumper to the health of the audience. Somehow, the physical culture and nerve requisite for such performances are more than ever abundant; for ten shillings a night, plenty of men can be had who will risk their lives ten times. Many young and old folks imagine that the clown who writhes so comically under the lash of the ring-master, and who dives without introduction among the people in the pit, and whose whole existence seems one round of jokes and heads-over-heels, and an occasional personal "turn," is a merry fellow, happy as the day is long. I know better. I know one Circus clown yet living, and not yet an old man, whose countenance could, and still does, set the audience and the actors, down to the very sawdust-raker, in a roar. Poor fellow! Once upon a time when his duties called him to the Circus, his only son, a lad of seven, was lying on his death-bed. He was left in charge of his sister, a girl of ten. Before his first entry into the ring for the evening, he came to me in tears. Oh, Joe, I've got to be funny to-night, and my boy, my dear Willy, dying all the while! And yet I must go in." While we talked, the bell rang for his entry, and in he went, amid the roars of a crowded house. After a short interval he had again to appear; but, in that interval, the servant of the lodginghouse brought word that Willy was dead. My poor friend was nearly distracted; yet the inevitable bell rang again, and he went in once more. The newspaper next day said that he had excelled himself. So he had. 66 There is one remarkable point of Circus economy, worth thinking of. How is it that we never find in the bills of the National Hippodrome, such announcements as we find frequently in the bills of the theatres? For instance, we never find that the Courier of St. Petersburg is to be performed by "a young gentleman, his first appearance on horseback;" or that Miss Cora Montressor will make her début on the corde élastique." No. Circus people never make "first appearances," in the common sense of the term; they are indigenous to the sawdust, as their fathers and mothers were before them. They must be all bred to the work. The artists of the Circus, in most instances, fulfil a long bondage of gratuitous labour -fourteen years generally, and in some cases twenty-one. Their fathers and mothers being in "the profession" before them, they commence their studies at perhaps two years of age. I have seen a score or two of tiny tumblers hard at work at that tender period of existence. There is no going into the Circus without preparation. On the stage of a Theatre, an ignorant pretender who knows nothing of the passions, may pretend to embody them, every one, for me (though I know better), without hurting himself. Let him make as free with a horse as with King Lear, and he will find his collar-bone the worse for it. Consequently, all Circus people must work hard and long. How hard they work to be sure! But then, as an old acrobat once said to me, "it is practice as does it; once at it, they daren't stop, but must go on till the end." And so the child becomes father to the man, and the infant Romeo in due time swells into the great Professor Montagu de Capulet, who, as a matter of course, exhibits his glittering spangles before all the crowned heads of Europe. The acrobatic child is quick to learn, for all his faculties are preternaturally shapened by rubbing against those about him. When the children of society are at school he is drawing money to "the concern," and can pick up pins with the corners of his eyes as he bends back and over, and can throw fore springs, head springs, and lion leaps; can, in short, do a hundred odd things to earn applause and money. It is no joke to rehearse with bodily hard work all day, and then work at night. I have had to change my dress thirteen times in the course of a night, because, when not otherwise engaged, I had to dress in a smart uniform and stand at the entrance way, to be ready to hold balloons, garters, poles, whatever else was required. All who enter a Circus are engaged for "general utility." In the summer-time we go a "tenting." That is the word now in use among Circus people to describe their mode of doing business in the country. It is an improvement on the old mountebanking system. Tenting continues from about April to October, and it involves a great amount of travelling-the whole process partaking more or less (especially when business is good) of a holiday character, but it is not, of course, all play even to the curious nomadic race who are engaged in it, and who are undoubtedly its most successful professors. The system of working is very simple. A large tent, generally about a hundred and twenty feet in diameter, having been procured, and the various officials being well trained in their business, the work of the summer can at once begin. During the winter, a route, which will occupy a month or two to travel, has been mapped out, and about a fortnight before the town season has been brought to a close, "the agent in advance," or go-a-head, as he is now called-a gentleman whose salary and expenses for travelling will cost "the concern" about twelve pounds a week-accompanied by a billsticker, starts off in advance of the troupe. His duties are to engage suitable ground for the encampment, stalls for the horses, and to "wake up" the natives with a display of gaudy bills stuck up at all the points of vantage along the route. It is also part of the business of this functionary to talk the concern he represents into notoriety; he must bounce at the various taverns at which he stops about the magnitude of the stud, the beauty of the animals, the ability of the company, and the immense "business" they have always done on their tenting tours. The company and Circus "traps"-i.e. properties of all kinds fixed up in a score of huge waggons-start, perhaps, about six o'clock in the morning, according to the distance to be gone over, which, on the average of the season, may be twelve miles a day. Waggon after waggon defiles from the ground, till all are gone: the band carriage, gaudily decorated, containing the TOWN AND COUNTRY CIRCUS LIFE. [November 16, 1861.] 185 musicians; the great cage, with its lions; the have their pint of beer and their pipe at the black servant follows with his herd of camels; inn. The acting manager settles up all the bills then come the handsome living-carriages of the for ground-money, for board and lodging, for proprietors," the wife or daughter preparing the horses, and for all sundries supplied to the breakfast as they trot over the ground. The concern. acting manager dashes along, last of all, in a will join the group, and there is no end of Chinese pavilion, drawn by a pair of dwarf gossip and tobacco reek in the best parlour of Some of the tradesmen of the place horses; and all along the route there are con- the Cock and Trumpet. This pleasant dissipagregated groups of the discerning public, who tion is but of brief duration, however, for the stare, open-mouthed, and wonder. early to rise," for next morning's journey must be duly accomplished. showman's motto must be "Early to bed and Arriving at their destination, the performers start off to procure lodgings and obtain breakfast. This is not so easy a matter as may be supposed; many good people having very takes place in each town, is the cause of what hearty prejudice against the show folk. Break- may be called "a profound sensation," especially The "parade," or grand entrée, which always fast being satisfactorily accomplished, it is time if the day be a genial one. for the company to get themselves "made up" shine out resplendent in tinsel and gold, and for the grand parade, which is generally fixed spangles and feathers, and glass and zinc diafor one o'clock, when the corps of performers, monds. There are, besides, crowns and tiaras, Then the company and all the auxiliaries who can be pressed into and rich silk and satin dresses. In the grand service, in their gayest character dresses, pre- entrée, as it is called, all is couleur de rose; ceded by the band, and accompanied by the den private woes or sorrows, general to the comof lions and other zoological phenomena, march pany, are hidden for the moment, and on blood in procession through the town and its neigh-chargers, curveting and prancing, decorated with bourhood. The period occupied by the pro- magnificent trappings, may be seen the more cession allows the tent-master to have the tent prominent heroes and heroines of the heathen put up, to superintend the placing of seats and mythology. The parade may be described as the hanging of lamps, so that, by two o'clock, the peroration advertisement, which puts the the place may be ready for the reception of com-key-stone on the gaudy bills that have hitherto pany. Red-tapists would stare in horror at the served to whet curiosity. celerity with which a Circus tent rises on the village green. The place is no sooner fixed upon 't not be in t' real tent, with all them fine than two or three nondescript-looking men- animals, and with such real live pretty men and "If Circus be so grand on peaper, what will those oddmen one always finds so plentiful about a women ?" ask the natives of the rural hamlets Circus, who can do anything, from looking the part of each other, and eagerly pay their money to of Bluebeard in a pantomime to shoeing a horse see the fun. The tent is crammed full, and our -rush with pick and hammer, and drive a short friend the rustic, who has never before been in central stake into the ground, to which is affixed a Circus, gazes around him with all his senses one end of a long measuring tape, and round and open. Suddenly, while John Clodpole is staring round the ground this tape is carried, the man round him, a bell rings, and almost simultaat the outer end leaving a stake at certain dis-neously the horse and the rider appear in the tances; another man gets these stakes hammered Circus, the latter floating gracefully into the ring into the ground to serve as staples for the like a pinky cloud. And then is summoned Mr. canvas, whilst nearer the ring another row of Merryman, who announces the style and title of pillars arise to support the roof. In the grand the lady, and, at once, all present know that she centre stands the great pole, and round it is cut is "Mdlle. Hamletina de Rozencrantz, the floating out of the turf the magic ring, or arena, for the zephyr rider." The lady being assisted to mount, combined army of acrobats, horsemen, ascen- the fun and wonder begins. Now is John Clodsionists, lion-tamers, clowns, &c. All is got pole in a heaven of delight; wonder, mixed with ready in little more than an hour: performing a little dash of fear, is his prevailing expression. tent, dressing tent, money tent, and every other The horse, with arched neck and flashing eye, is accessory. miles an hour, and the nymph of the floating zephyr, standing upon his back, goes through flying round the ring at the rate of eight or ten her great "trick act" with a power, if not a grace, that evokes the thunder of the gods most liberally. On the return of the company from parade, escorted by those who are to form the spectators, the performance at once begins, and is carried on with great rapidity for an hour and a half. After the company has been dismissed, the performers have time to dine and take tea-a most welcome refreshment, for, at seven o'clock, all Mr. Merryman, who, after asking the ringhands must again muster for the evening's per- master in the gravest possible tones what he Next comes the "turn," as it is called, of formance, which is longer and more elaborate" can go for to bring for to fetch for to carry than that given in the morning. So soon as the for him?" straightway introduces some most last chords of "God save the Queen" have died interesting family reminiscences, by asking the away, the tent is "struck" and packed up ready for another day's march, and the lingering crowd having gradually dispersed, all is quiet. After work is over the manager and his chief aides will audience if they knew his grandfather; upon father, down to his nephew's wife's last twins. that is, in obtaining patronage from the inIt is astonishing to see with what gusto every-fluential people of the neighbourhood, and also body laughs at the old Joe Millers. No doubt in seeing the gentlemen of the press; because they are quite new in Rusticshire, and Circus a good word from the local newspaper goes clowns are not famed for their inventive powers. a great length with the country people. In The modern Touchstone might do better, this way the colony of show folks passes over a though. The clowns of the Circus might, if large district of country, selecting with great they liked, considerably elevate their art. Our tact and knowledge the best places at their best clowns cling too rigidly to the old traditions of time-namely, when there is a fair or other fête the ring. They ought to reform this altogether, in prospect and hitting on popular watering and and become more than they ever have been sea-bathing places when they are most resorted "the abstract and brief chronicles of the time," to. As may be supposed, a large sum of money and so satirise the "living manners as they rise." is carried off from the various halting-places on The clown having finished his "patter," or, the route one hundred pounds a day being in professional phrase, "cracked his wheeze,' frequently taken in the pay-carriage of a traveland the "star-rider of the world" having entered ling Circus. But it is not all gold that glitters, the ring with a humility quite wonderful for and such sums are, of course, subjected to one so great, the natives begin to feel asto-heavy deductions before they reach the bank nished indeed. To see "the favourite pupil account of the proprietor. The salaries and of the great and mighty Andrew Ducrow, the ne plus ultra of British horsemen," sitting upon the extreme verge of the horse's hindquarters with neither bridle nor saddle, so lightly that he scarcely seems to touch the animal as it flies round the ring, almost makes the gazer giddy. Again, when he springs suddenly to his feet, and with one foot on the horse's head and the other on his shoulder, sweeps round and round at redoubled speed, the horse and he both leaning into the ring at an angle which seems to threaten that every moment will send them both whirling into the sawdust, the spectators cannot choose but to breathe hard. In due time all the wonders of the travelling Circus are accomplished, and the wearied performers are glad to rest. It is no easy task this tumbling, tight-roping, and equestrianising, changing dress perhaps three times in the course of the performance, and "going in" for five or six turns. Although the salaries sound largely in the ears of people who do not earn more by their brain and pen, still it must be kept in mind that "mountebanking" is a wearing-out profession, and that a decrepit old age may be yet in store for the "bounding brothers" of the ring, or even for Herr Strongbeard, the "modern Samson," himself. In the evening, again, perhaps under the smiling beneficence of a grand patronage, there is a second performance, the patronage being most likely obtained through the impudence ("cheek" "it is called in the profession) of the acting manager. Unfortunately, there is sometimes a dark side to the picture, and accordingly we find the manager, on the occasions of "bad business," compelled to leave a horse behind for bay, corn, and stabling. other charges, and the miscellaneous expenses of a large Circus always on the road, are too multifarious to particularise, but they frequently amount to fifty or sixty pounds a day, and the occasional loss of a valuable horse, or the purchase of a couple of lions from Mr. Gimcrack, makes a large hole in the purse. Nevertheless, Circus people do occasionally retire from business with fortunes. HISTORY OF A YOUNG OLOGY, Ir must always be difficult to decide at what precise point in the progress of knowledge a particular branch of science becomes sufficiently important and independent to require consideration as a new science, under some new name, and to deserve recognition as an independent centre of human inquiry, round which facts may be grouped and from which inferences may be drawn. This process, however, has taken place very frequently within the last two centuries, as every one will admit who considers the ter rible array of new words recently introduced. As familiar examples, we may mention GEOLOGY and ETHNOLOGY, formerly mere departments of natural history. METEOROLOGY is another example. Meteorology ranks still as a new science. The first work of any value in reference to it in our language appears to have been a volume of essays, published in 1793, by Dr. Dalton, and it was not till long after this period that regular meteorological observations were made and their meaning investigated by scientific men. At the present time, however, we find the study of meteorology not only pursued in many special observatories, but regarded as essential to every ship's captain; since, not only does the speed of voyages depend on it, but the safety of passengers, crew, and cargo. The tenting system is now so well organised, that everything connected with it is conducted with effect and punctuality. Every now and The word meteor once meant merely a strange then the "go-a-head" will hark back across the appearance in the sky, but it has for some time country to consult his employers as to change included all appearances, ordinary and extraordior prolongation of route. The acting mana- nary, in any way connected with the air that surger of the Circus holds an important posi- rounds us. Thus, the weight or pressure of the air, tion in such consultations, and is also of great the warmth or coldness of the air, the strange apuse in "working the oracle," as it is called-pearances, under the name of aurora, which en |