The Romance of Madame Tussaud'sTussaud, John Theodore
History
The Romance of Madame Tussaud's
Tussaud, John Theodore
Madame Tussaud and Sons' Exhibition; Tussaud, Marie, 1761-1850; Waxworks
Bobby has a keen sense of humour, and some of them, entering into the
spirit of the situation, now and again stand stock-still in the most
natural attitude they can command. Not once, but frequently, a visitor,
in passing with his friends, has, with an air of superior knowledge,
pushed the ferrule of his stick or umbrella into the supposed figure’s
side, to be startled by the model’s ejaculating, “Now then, young man,
enough of that.”
There is a mystery which has never been cleared up, and that is whether
it was a policeman or a burglar who left a bull’s-eye lantern in the
Exhibition studio; but it is quite clear that the intruder, whoever he
was, fled from the place in fright.
A portrait of the Marquis of Hartington had just been finished, and
left fully clothed and ready to be transferred to the Exhibition. By an
oversight the door of the studio was left unfastened, and on our return
in the morning it was found to have been opened.
[Illustration: MARQUIS OF HARTINGTON
The late Duke of Devonshire.]
On the floor, at the feet of the model of the Marquis, lay a bull’s-eye
lantern that evidently had been dropped by its owner as he rushed from
the place. The probability is that the policeman, or the burglar, had
flashed his lamp on the figure and had been scared to find, as he
thought, a man--or a spectre--confronting him. No claim was ever made for
the lamp.
It is not an unusual thing that visitors who wish to save expense should
bring with them an old Catalogue which they have treasured up at home
for a future visit. This is not a safe plan, for with the addition of new
figures the older ones have to be renumbered. As a result the visitors
in question are sometimes misled, as was the lady in the following story
told by a Londoner.
He related that he had occasion to take a country cousin to the
Exhibition, and she took with her an old Catalogue.
He paid little attention to her describing King Edward IV as King Henry
VIII, and exclaiming that she did not know Queen Mary of Scots dressed
like a man. But when she said, “Well, I never! I always thought Gladstone
was a man, though my brothers call him an old woman,” then he felt
interested, and proceeded to investigate. There it was, sure enough;
the model No. 63 was the figure of an old lady, but in the out-of-date
Catalogue No. 63 was “William Ewart Gladstone.”
Sometimes we get a rough old country farmer who has got it into his head
that everyone in our Exhibition has committed some crime or other.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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