The Old Showmen and the Old London FairsFrost, Thomas
History
The Old Showmen and the Old London Fairs
Frost, Thomas
Fairs -- England -- London; London (England) -- Social life and customs
The daily cost of the food of the animals in a menagerie is no trifle. The
amount of animal food required for the carnivora in a first class
menagerie is about four hundredweight daily, consisting chiefly of the
shins, hearts, and heads of bullocks. A full-grown lion or tiger will
consume twelve pounds of meat per day, and this is said to have been the
allowance in Wombwell's menagerie; but it is more, I believe, than is
allowed in the gardens of the Zoological Society. Bears are allowed meat
only in the winter, their food at other seasons consisting of bread,
sopped biscuit, or boiled rice, sweetened with sugar. Then there are the
elephants, camels, antelopes, etc., to be provided for; and the quantity
of hay, cabbages, bread, and boiled rice which an elephant will consume,
in addition to the buns and biscuits given to it by the visitors, is, as
Dominie Sampson would say, prodigious. There is a story told of an
elephant belonging to a travelling menagerie which escaped from the stable
in which it had been placed for the night, and, wandering through the
village, found a baker's shop open. It pushed its head in, and, helping
itself with its trunk, devoured sixteen four-pound loaves, and was
beginning to empty the glass jars of the sweets they contained when the
arrival of its keeper interrupted its stolen repast.
I now come to the minor exhibitions, of which the first from Hosier Lane,
where it stood at the corner, was a peep-show, in which rudely painted
pictures were successively lowered by the showmen, and viewed through
circular apertures, fitted with glasses of magnifying power. A green
curtain separated the spectators from the outer throng while they gazed
upon such strangely contrasted scenes as the murder of Weare and the Queen
of Sheba's visit to Solomon, the execution of Probert and the conversion
of St. Paul, the Greenland whale fishery and the building of Babel,
Wellington at Waterloo and Daniel in the lions' den!
Next to this stood a show, on the exterior of which a man beat a drum with
one hand, and played a hurdy-gurdy with the other, pausing occasionally to
invite the gazers to walk up, and see the living wonders thus announced on
the show-cloths:--"_Miss Hipson, the Middlesex Wonder, the Largest Child
in the Kingdom, when young the Handsomest Child in the World.--The Persian
Giant.--The Fair Circassian with Silver Hair.--The Female Dwarf, Two Feet
Eleven Inches high.--Two Wild Indians from the Malay Islands in the
East._" When a company had collected, the wonders were shown from the
floor of a caravan on wheels, one side being taken out, and replaced by a
curtain, which was drawn or thrown back as occasion required. After the
audience had dispersed, Hone was permitted by the proprietor of the show,
Nicholas Maughan, of Ipswich, to go "behind the curtain," where the artist
who accompanied him completed his sketches for the illustrations in the
'Every-day Book,' while Hone entered into conversation with the persons
exhibited.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account