The Old Showmen and the Old London Fairs

One of the finest tigers ever imported into this country, and said to be the identical beast that escaped from Mr. Jamrach’s premises in St. George’s Street (better known by its old name of Ratcliffe Highway), and killed a boy before it was recaptured, was purchased by Manders, and placed in a cage with another tiger. The two beasts soon began fighting furiously, upon which Macomo entered the cage, armed only with a riding-whip, and attempted to separate them. His efforts caused both the tigers to turn their fury upon him, and they severely lacerated him; but, covered with blood as he was, he continued the struggle for supremacy until the beasts cowered before him, and he was able, with the assistance of the keepers, to separate them.

It is worthy of remark, in connection with the causes of accidents with lions and tigers, that Macomo, like Crockett, was a strictly sober man, never touching intoxicating liquors of any kind. “It’s the drink,” said the ex-lion king, who was interviewed by the special commissioner of a London morning journal two years ago; “It’s the drink that plays the mischief with us fellows. There are plenty of people always ready to treat the daring fellow that plays with the lions as if they were kittens; and so he gets reckless, lets the dangerous animal – on which, if he were sober, he would know he must always keep his eye – get dodging round behind him; or hits a beast in which he ought to know that a blow rouses the sleeping devil; or makes a stagger, and goes down, and then they set upon him.”

Macomo’s fight with the two tigers was not the only occasion on which he received injuries, the scars of which he bore upon him to the day of his death, which, contrary to the expectation of every one who witnessed his performances, was a peaceful one. He died a natural death in 1870, when he was succeeded by an Irishman named Macarthy, who had previously been attached in a similar capacity to the circus of Messrs. Bell and Myers. While performing, in 1862, with the lions belonging to that establishment, he had had his left arm so severely mangled by one of the beasts that amputation became necessary. This circumstance seems to have added to the éclat of his performances; but he had neither the nerve of Macomo, nor his resolution to abstain from stimulants. Unlike his predecessor, he frequently turned his back upon the lions, though he had frequently been cautioned against the danger he thereby incurred; and it was believed that his disregard of the warning was one of the causes of the terrible encounter which terminated his existence.

Macarthy was bitten on two occasions while performing with Manders’s lions, prior to the disaster at Bolton. The first time was while performing at Edinburgh, when one of the beasts made a snap at his remaining arm, but only slightly grazed it. The second occasion was a few days before the fatal accident occurred, when one of the Lions bit him slightly on the wrist. He lost his life in representing a so-called “lion hunt,” an exhibition which was introduced by Macomo, and consists in chasing the animals about the cage, the performer being armed with a sword and pistols, and throwing into the mimic sport as much semblance of reality as the circumstances allow. The exhibition is acknowledged by lion-tamers themselves to be a dangerous one, and it should never be attempted with any but young animals. For their ordinary performances, most lion-tamers prefer full-grown animals, as being better trained; but a full-grown lion does not like to be driven and hustled about, as the animals are in the so-called “lion hunt,” and when such are used for this exhibition they are frequently changed.

Macarthy was driving the animals from one end of the cage to the other when one of them ran against his legs, and threw him down. He soon regained his feet, however, and drove the animals into a corner. Whilst stamping his feet upon the floor, to make the animals run past him, one of them crept stealthily out from the group, and sprang upon him, seizing him by the right hip and throwing him down upon his side. For a moment the spectators imagined that this was part of the performance, but Macarthy’s agonised features soon convinced them of the terrible reality of the scene before them. As he struggled to rise, three other lions sprang upon him, one of them seizing his arm, from which he immediately dropped the sword.

The keepers now hurried to the unfortunate man’s assistance, some of them endeavouring to beat off the infuriated lions, while others inserted a partition between the bars of the cage, with a view to driving the animals behind it. This was a task of considerable difficulty, however, for as one beast was obliged to relinquish its hold of the unfortunate man, another rushed into its place. Heated irons were then brought, and by their aid, and the discharge of fire-arms, four of the lions were driven behind the partition. Macarthy was lying in the centre of the cage, still being torn by the lion that had first attacked him. A second partition was attempted to be inserted, but was found to be too large; and then one of the keepers drew the first one out a little, with the view of driving the fifth lion among the rest. More blank cartridges were fired, without effect, and it was not until the hot irons were applied to the nose of the infuriated brute that it loosed its hold, and ran behind the partition.

Even then, before the opening could be closed, the lion ran out again, seized the dead or dying man by one of his feet and dragged him into the corner, where four of the beasts again fell upon him with unsatiated thirst of blood. The terrible scene had now been going on for a quarter of an hour, and, even when all the animals were at length secured, it was found that they were next the entrance of the cage, the opposite end of which had to be broken open before the mangled corpse of the lion-tamer could be lifted out.

As lion-tamers are well paid, and this was only the second fatal accident in the course of half a century, it is not surprising that, as soon as the catastrophe became known, there were several candidates for the vacancy created by Macarthy’s death. Mrs. Manders had resolved to discontinue the exhibition, however, and the applicants for the situation received an intimation to that effect.

Mrs. Wombwell retired from the menagerie business in 1866, and was succeeded in the proprietorship by Fairgrieve, who had married her niece.

Fairgrieve retired from the occupation in the spring of 1872, when his fine collection of animals was sold by auction at Edinburgh. As the public sale of a menagerie is a rare event, and Mr. Jamrach and Mr. Rice do not publish prices current, the reader may be glad to learn the prices realised.

The first lot was a racoon – “a very pleasant, playful pet,” the auctioneer said – which was knocked down to the Earl of Roseberry for one pound. Mr. Bell Lamonby, another private collector, became the possessor of a pair of agoutis; which he was assured were “sharp, active little animals, and could sing like canaries,” for an equally moderate sum. Then came a strange-looking and ferocious animal called the Tasmanian devil, of which there is a specimen in the gardens of the Zoological Society, and which the auctioneer assured his hearers was as strong in the jaw as a hyena, but not to be recommended for purchase as a domestic pet. Bids were slow, and even the prospect of purchasing the devil for three pounds did not render buyers enthusiastic; so that Mrs. Day bought the animal for five shillings more.

Then came the baboons and monkeys. The Diana monkey, a white and rose-breasted little animal, was purchased by Dr. Mackendrick for seven pounds; while the Capuchin monkey, full of intelligence, and belonging to a kind fancied by Italian organ-grinders, was knocked down to Mr. Rice for thirty shillings. Mr. Jamrach purchased the drill, “a playful little drawing-room pet, worth twenty pounds to put on the kitchen shelf to look at,” for five guineas; and Mr. Rice paid thirty pounds for a male mandrill, five for a female of the same species, eighteen guineas for a pair of Anubis baboons, and fifteen pounds for five dog-faced baboons.

Passing on to the bird carriage, the first specimen submitted to competition was the black vulture, one of the largest birds of the species, and in excellent plumage. Mr. Rice bought this bird for three pounds ten shillings, and the condor, which had been forty years in the show, for fifteen pounds. Next came the emu, “a very suitable bird for a gentleman’s park, and a nice show thing for the ladies in the morning, after breakfast,” which Mrs. Day secured for her collection at seven pounds. Mr. Jamrach gave thirteen pounds for the pair of pelicans, bought at the sale of the Knowsley collection, and which had been trained to run races. The fine collection of parrots, macaws, and cockatoos was dispersed among a number of local fanciers of ornithological beauties.

Proceeding to the larger mammals, the auctioneer knocked down a male nylghau to Mr. Van Amburgh, the great American menagerist, for twenty-six pounds, and a female of the same species to the proprietor of the Manchester Zoological Gardens for ten guineas; while Mr. Jamrach secured a llama for fifteen pounds, and Mr. Rice a young kangaroo for twelve pounds. Professor Edwards, who had come over from Paris to pick up a few good specimens for the Jardin des Plantes, purchased the white bear, “young, healthy, and lively as a trout,” for forty pounds, and a jackal for three pounds. A Thibet bear and three performing leopards were knocked down to Mr. Jamrach for five guineas and sixty pounds respectively. Another leopard, advanced in years, realised only six guineas. Mr. Van Amburgh secured the spotted hyena for fifteen pounds; while a performing striped hyena brought only five shillings above three pounds. Among objects of minor interest, a pair of wolves were sold for two guineas, an ocelot for six pounds ten shillings, three porcupines for ten pounds more, a wombat for seven pounds, a Malabar squirrel for five pounds, and a pair of boa constrictors for twelve pounds.

The large carnivora excited much attention, and fair prices were realised, though in some instances they were less than was expected. Mr. Rice gave a hundred and eighty-five pounds for the famous lion with which Signor Lorenzo used to represent the well-known story of Androcles, two other lions for a hundred and forty pounds each, two young ones for ninety pounds each, and a lioness for eighty pounds. A black-maned lion, said to be the largest and handsomest lion in Britain, was sold to Mr. Jackson, for the Bristol Zoological Gardens, for two hundred and seventy pounds; and his mate, in the interesting condition of approaching maternity, to Mr. Jennison, of the Belle Vue Gardens, Manchester, for a hundred guineas. Mr. Jamrach gave two hundred pounds for a fine lion, and a hundred and fifty-five pounds for the magnificent tigress that used to figure conspicuously in the performances of Signor Lorenzo.

Mr. Rice, who was the largest purchaser, bought the gnu for eighty-five pounds, and the zebra for fifty pounds. The camels and dromedaries, bought principally for travelling menageries, realised from fourteen to thirty pounds each, with the exception of a young one, bought by Dr. Mackendrick for nine pounds ten shillings. Menagerists restrict the word “camel” to the two-humped or Bactrian variety, and call the one-humped kind dromedaries; but the dromedary, according to naturalists, is a small variety of the Syrian camel, bearing the same relation to the latter as a pony does to a horse. The dromedaries of Mr. Fairgrieve’s collection were, on the contrary, taller than the Bactrian camels.

There was a spirited competition for the two elephants, ending in the magnificent full-tusked male, seven feet six inches in height, being knocked down to Mr. Jennison for six hundred and eighty pounds, and the female, famous for her musical performances, to Mr. Rice for a hundred and forty-five pounds. The former animal was described as the largest and cleverest performing elephant ever exhibited. In stature he is exceeded, it is said, by the elephant kept by the Emperor of Russia at the gardens of Tsarski-Seloe; but, while the performances of that beast have been confined to the occasional killing of a keeper, the animal now in the Belle Vue Gardens at Manchester, besides performing many tricks evincing great docility and intelligence, was accustomed to draw the band carriage, would pull a loaded waggon up a hill, and had for the last eighteen months preceding the sale placed all the vans of the menagerie in position, with the assistance of a couple of men. The entire proceeds of the sale were a little under three thousand pounds.

I do not remember ever visiting a travelling menagerie that afforded me greater pleasure than one of the smaller class which I saw some thirty years ago at Mitcham Fair, and subsequently at Camberwell Fair. There were no lions or tigers in the collection, but it included four performing leopards, a tame hyena, and a wolf that seemed equally tame, if such an inference could be drawn from the presence of a lamb in its cage. The showman, who wore neither spangled trunks, nor a coat of chain-mail, but corduroy breeches and a sleeved vest of cat’s skin, entered the leopard’s cage, with a riding whip in one hand and a hoop in the other. The animals leaped over the whip, through the hoop, and over the man’s back, exhibiting throughout the performance as much docility as dogs or cats. The whip was used merely as part of the “properties.” The man afterwards entered the cage of the hyena, which rubbed its head against him, after the manner of a cat, and allowed him to open its mouth. The hyena has the reputation of being untameable; but, in addition to this instance to the contrary, Bishop Heber had a hyena at Calcutta which followed him about like a dog.

Tigers are little used as performing animals, partly perhaps from being less easily procured, but also, I believe, from greater distrust of them on the part of brute-tamers. There was a splendid tigress in Fairgrieve’s menagerie, however, with which Signor Lorenzo used to do a wonderful performance; and I saw, some five-and-thirty years ago, in a show pitched upon a piece of waste ground at Norwood, a tiger that played a prominent part in a sensational drama, the interest of which was evolved from the hair-breadth escapes of a British traveller in the wilds of Africa. The author did not seem to have been aware that there are no tigers in that part of the world, the animals so called by the Cape colonists being leopards; but, as the old woman who took money replied to my remonstrance that one tiger could not, without an outrage upon Lindley Murray, be called performing animals, “what can you expect for a penny?”

The old showmen are now virtually extinct, and the London fairs have all ceased to exist. “Old Bartlemy” died hard, but its time must soon have come, in the natural order of things. Its extinction was followed closely by that of all the other fairs formerly held in the suburbs of the metropolis. Camberwell Fair was abolished in 1856, and the Greenwich Fairs in the following year. I cannot better express my opinion as to the causes which have led to the decline of fairs generally, but especially of those held within half an hour’s journey from the metropolis, and the suppression of most of those formerly held within a shorter distance, than by quoting a brief dialogue between a showman and an acrobat in ‘Bob Lumley’s Secret,’ a story which appeared anonymously a few years ago in a popular periodical: —

“‘Fairs is nearly worked out, Joe,’ said the red-faced individual, speaking between the whiffs of blue smoke from his dhudeen. ‘Why, I can remember the time when my old man used to take more money away from this fair with the Russian giant, and the Polish dwarf, and the Circassian lady, than I can make now in a month. Them was the times, when old Adam Lee, the Romany, used to come to this fair with his coat buttons made of guineas, and his waistcoat buttons of seven-shilling pieces. Ah, you may laugh, Joey Alberto; but I have heard my old man speak of it many’s the time.’

“‘There’s good fairs now down in the shires,’ observed the younger man; ‘but this town is too near the big village.’

“‘That’s it!’ exclaimed the showman. ‘It’s all along o’ them blessed railways. They brings down lots o’ people, it is true; but, lor’! they don’t spend half the money the yokels used to in former times.’

“‘Besides which,’ rejoined he of the spangled trunks, ‘the people about here can run up to London and back for a shilling any day in the week, all the year round, and see all the living curiosities in the Zoo, and the stuffed ones in the Museum, and go in the evening to a theatre or a music-hall.’”

The fair referred to was the October fair at Croydon; and I may add that views similar to those which I have put into the mouths of the acrobat and the showman were expressed to me in 1846 by a showman named Gregory, who exhibited various natural curiosities and well-contrived mechanical representations of the falls of Niagara and a storm at sea. He had just received from the printer five thousand bills, which he carefully stowed away.

“This fair don’t pay for bills,” said he. “I want these for Canterbury Fair, where there’s more money to be taken in one day than in this field in three.”

“Which do you reckon the best fair in your circuit?” I inquired.

“Sandwich,” he replied. “That’s a good distance from London, you see, and though it’s a smaller town than this, there’s plenty of money in it. This is too near London, now the rail enables people to go there and back for a shilling, see all the sights and amusements, and get back home the same night.”

The fairs within half an hour’s journey from London which are still held are in a state of visible decadence. I walked through Kingston Fair last year, about three o’clock in the afternoon, at which time Croydon Fair would, even twenty or thirty years ago, have been crowded. The weather was unusually fine, the sun shining with unwonted brilliance for the season, and the ground in better condition for walking than I had ever seen the field at Croydon on the 2nd of October. Yet there were fewer people walking through the fair than I had seen in the market-place. The gingerbread vendors and other stall-keepers looked as if they were weary of soliciting custom in vain; the swings and the roundabouts stood idle; some of the showmen had not thought the aspect of the field sufficiently promising to be encouraged to unfurl their pictorial announcements, and those who had done so failed to attract visitors.

Day’s menagerie was there, and was the principal show in the fair; but the few persons who paused to gaze at the pictures passed on without entering, and even the beasts within were so impressed with the pervading listlessness and inactivity that I did not hear a sound from the cages as I walked round to the rear of the show to observe its extent. There was no braying of brass bands, no beating of gongs or bawling through speaking-trumpets. One forlorn showman ground discordant sounds from a barrel-organ with an air of desperation, and another feebly clashed a pair of cymbals; but these were all the attempts made to attract attention, and they were made in vain.

This was on Saturday afternoon, too, when a large number of the working classes are liberated who could not formerly have attended the fair at that time without taking a holiday. There was a good attendance in the evening, I heard; but, however well the shows and stalls may be patronised after six o’clock, it is obvious that their receipts must be less than half what they amounted to in the days when they were thronged from noon till night.

Fairs are becoming extinct because, with the progress of the nation, they have ceased to possess any value in its social economy, either as marts of trade or a means of popular amusement. All the large towns now possess music-halls, and many of them have a theatre; the most populous have two or three. The circuses of Newsome and Hengler are located for three months at a time in permanent buildings in the larger towns, and the travelling circuses visit in turn every town in the kingdom. Bristol and Manchester have Zoological Gardens, and Brighton has its interesting Aquarium. The railways connect all the smaller towns, and most of the villages, with the larger ones, in which amusements may be found superior to any ever presented by the old showmen. What need, then, of fairs and shows? The nation has outgrown them, and fairs are as dead as the generations which they have delighted, and the last showman will soon be as great a curiosity as the dodo.