So far, also, from ‘all the mothers’ doing all the performances mentioned by Dickens, there are more often none who do them. I call to mind at this moment a circus in which seven of the male members of the company were married, not one of whose wives ever appeared in the ring, or ever had done so. The picture of the domestic life of the men and women performing in Sleary’s circus differs as much from reality as their versatile talents and accomplishments differ from the powers exhibited by the riders, clowns, and tumblers of real life. The company seems to be a rather strong one, and most of the men have wives and children; yet the whole of them, including the proprietor, are represented as lodging in one house, an obscure inn in an obscure part of the outskirts of the town. Such deviations from probability do not lessen the interest of the story, which I have read again and again with pleasure; but they render it of little or no value as a picture of circus life and character. Circus men, if married, and accompanied by their wives, will generally be found occupying private apartments. Riders and others who are unmarried sometimes prefer to lodge in public-houses, and often have no choice in the matter, owing to the early hours at which the inhabitants of provincial towns retire to rest, and the unwillingness of many persons to receive ‘professionals’ as lodgers, which applies equally to actors and vocalists. But the Pegasus’s Arms must have had an unusual number of apartments for a house of its class to have accommodated all Sleary’s people, with their families; and the company must have been gregarious in a very remarkable degree.