Alfred Trumble, A Spangled World; or, Life with the circus, New York: Richard K. Fox, 1883.

Chapter IV. How Circus Riders Are Made

I have thus far written of circuses and the men who own them. Now let us look at the people who constitute the circus.

The chief of these, as the reader will admit, are the riders. Who has not felt his heart stop beating as these gorgeous apparitions burst upon him from the mysterious recesses of the dressing-room? What a dream they were! Velvets, tinsel, tarletan skirts, pink tights, gold braid, feathers and spangles, flying through the air like gigantic birds of paradise Who are they? Where do they come from? Are they born or dropped from the skies?

Who and what they are it is my purpose to tell you, or rather to let them tell you out of their own mouths.

Now then, Mr. Merryman, stand aside lively. Ladies and gentlemen, permit me to introduce Mr. James Melville, who has a good word to say for himself and the business he is one of the shining lights of.

"My father and all his brothers," says Mr. Melville, "were boatmen. Their father was a boatman before them, and they all thought it was in the family. I was born in Inverness, Scotland, but was carried to Australia when eighteen months old. There I was soon put in a boat, and, when I was only sixteen years of age, won a two-and-a-half-mile race in a shell boat, and shortly after acted as coxswain with a crew which won nineteen races out of twenty-one at Sydney. But boating was not in my line and I liked horses and the circus better, and so my father, knowing what a young daredevil I was, and likely to have my own way, apprenticed me to learn to be a horse-rider. There was no objection to apprenticing lads to be made riders in those days, and the boys were better for it. It was hard work, though. We had to help clean horses, bed them down, lead them around for exercise when they were not at work, and we had to go to school, and know our lessons, too. Then we were taught gymnastics and the first points of equestrianism, and the boy who tumbled the most times and got the most bloody noses, black eyes, sprains, twists, was simply the one most laughed at for his clumsiness. But there was no cruelty - that is a popular fallacy. If a boy has any fear of a horse, shows any hesitation at attempting difficult, and perhaps perilous, feats, which are never forced on him too soon, but come in the regular course of training, he is never whipped and forced to try it, if for no better reason than that it would not pay the managers to keep him. He would never make a rider. A boy who does not enjoy the wild excitement of the race, who does not like to fly around the ring on the back of a galloping, excited horse determined to accomplish his feat and gain the applause of the audience, or who winces for a second at the fear of a tumble or being stepped on by his horse, is just the boy circus men don't want, and instead of beating them to crush the little spirit they have they are precious glad to have them go and get their living in some other way.

“I served an apprenticeship of seven years, and was never struck by a whip or a hand during all that time, but I loved the business I had determined to adopt, and my teachers saw I only wanted encouragement and no punishment. I know that when I was practicing at the Sydney Amphitheatre under the old veteran Malcom I would frequently arise at four o'clock, get out one of the horses I used to use, and have it few hours' practice before the grooms were up. The old man would always find it out, though; the look of the horse would show it, and then he would growl out, 'Oh, yes, it's all the work of that young devil, Jim; if he don't stop it I'll give him the soundest licking a boy ever had; but I never got it.

In training boys for riders, we first give them all the experience we can on the ground or on bard cushions, teach them to turn flipflaps, somersaults, jump through paper balloons and throw a somersault, and all that sort of thing. Then we show how to slip and tumble while going through their acts, and hit wherever they may, but striving always to save their heads and back. This teaches them how to save themselves from serious injuries. When the boys get so they can turn a somersault from a board raised two or three feet from the ground and fall without danger of doing themselves any harm beyond hurting a bit, then we put them horseback.

First we put them on a good steady old nag, without a saddle, but with a belly-band with handles instead. On these the boys ride a-straddle; then sideways, like a lady, changing from one side to the other, the horse beginning with a walk and winding up on full gallop. Then begins the upright riding. The horse carries a broad hard stuffed pad. The beginner has a strong belt about his waist. In the centre of the ring 'the mechanic' is placed. I suppose you have seen it, as it has been shown in a number of circuses. It is an upright log, with an arm running over the performing track. A strong rope runs along it to the end of the arm, then through a pulley down to the ambitious youth who wants to be a rider, and fastened to the belt around his waist. The other end is held by a man at the centre pole, so, you see, the boy cannot fall to the ground if he misses his footing or loses his equilibrium and so falls off his horse. The man - who was giving him plenty of rope to dance about - simply brings him up with a short turn, and he swings around in mid-air until he catches up with his horse and gets another foothold. 'The mechanic,' you know, goes around the ring at the same speed that the horse keeps up. But when the aspirant gets so far advanced that he can do without the mechanic and pads, and ride a little on bare back, and when he commences his somersaults, vaulting through, paper balloon& etc., he gets many a hard knock I tell you.

“There are not a very great number of riders who get that far ahead in the profession. First, the bare-back rider must find out the centre of gravity of the circle, and then, and most important, of all, he must know how to fall. The shaking of a paper, a child's cry or many other little trifles may distract a horse's attention for a second, but short as that time is if the performer happens to be in the air it means a fall. If he is too long coming down to catch the horse, why all right, but if he can only touch him with his foot he gives himself a push toward the centre of the ring, rolls himself up in a ball as quickly as possible, tries not to strike on his head or spine, and the very instant he feels the earth to let everything go, relax all muscles, and fall well; as near as I can describe it, fall as nearly like a drunken man as he can.

“I have broken an arm twice, and had an ankle knocked out of joint, which laid me up for weeks; I have sprained my legs, ankles, and wrists when I didn't fall just exactly right, and I have got more dents in my head than a skillet has holes, but a man must not mind little things like those if he expects to be a champion. I was the first bare-back rider ever seen in Australia, and no one there has yet performed the feats I did. That is where I gained the title of 'champion.' I had then a magnificent gray mare, a thorough-bred Arabian, one of the best ever imported to this country. Many of the old theatre-goers will remember her with pleasure. I brought her to this country, and made my first appearance in New York on her back in the old Broadway Theatre in 1858.

“I traveled with 'Pop' Whittaker in California in 1846. He is one of the popular and best men in the profession. I was the first man who ever carried a living boy, and a hearty chunk at that, at arm's length while dashing around the ring, bare-back, at full speed of my glorious old Arabian. The picture of that feat, taken at that time, is now hanging in John Gorman's old favorite resort for circus men during the idle winter months, and is much commented on. The old gray lasted until she was thirty-one years old, and for the last year or two, when she commenced to get a little stiff, I kept her in clover. She is buried in a plot, and has a nice little tombstone over her. I have another old mare who has served me over twenty years, but she is too old to do more, and she is now spending her last days up on the Lorillard estate, carefully attended to. She is thirty years old. So you see ring horses live to a good old age and are carefully cared for until the end."

So much for Mr. Melville. Now let another famous arenic star, Charles W. Fish, take the floor.

"I was apprenticed at the age of seven. The first year I was under James McFarland, and then, from the spring of 1857 to the 23d of November, 1864, with C. J. Rogers, of Spalding & Rogers. I went through a course of training, study, and everything else. In all that time I was only whipped three times - once for going fishing when I had been positively ordered not to, once for firing off fire crackers on a steamboat, and the third time for going off to dinner without a friend, not letting Rogers know I was going, and staying away so long that he got anxious and worried about me. I deserved my whipping each time, and I did not get as much as I deserved. I never saw an instance, or heard of one, of a boy's being kicked, struck with a fist, pounded, or otherwise treated with cruelty by any one in the profession. Loud talk and ridiculous threats constitute the main punishment apprentices get. Old John Robinson got the name of being cruel by his way of talking to the boys; but the truth was, he was kind. He would set an apprentice to do something, tell him exactly how to do it, show him, and promise him a cane, or a watch, or a suit of clothes as soon as he got to do it well - a promise which he did not fail to keep if the boy deserved it. But suppose the boy was mulish or stupid, and failed over and over again through not minding what he was told, Robinson's patience would give out and he would swear and roar:

“Will somebody lend me a pistol to shoot this boy; or a knife or a cross-cut saw to cut him in two; or a club to beat his head in?' But he didn't want anything of the sort, any more than he wanted a knife and fork to eat the boy with. Even when he had to punish a boy for serious misbehavior he never went. too far. Yet, to listen to him, you would think be was going to slay the boy. He trained Jim Robinson and young Hernandez, both first-class riders.

"Ordinarily it is slow work for a boy to learn to ride well, however willing he may be and however good his master. In fact, a rider who desires to excel in his profession is never done practising, never considers that he has learned all his business. So there is no fixed point when the education of the apprentice can be deemed complete. But it should be, for good practical service, in the time commonly set for an apprenticeship, which is seven years.

“All the feats performed on horseback are first tried and thoroughly practised on the ground; and few persons outside the profession have any idea of the difficulty attending even the simplest of them, or of the time required for preliminary practice. I worked once for ten years, practising on the ground, to get one feat, and when I did succeed in it only did it ten days, for the reason that it was not appreciated by the audience, and I could not see any benefit in risking my neck at every performance in doing something that didn't take. But it was the most difficult and dangerous thing I ever attempted. It was a twisting somersault. Standing with my back toward the horses's head I would turn a back somersault, and, twisting around while in the air, would land with my face toward the horse's head. When I was in the air I could not tell how I was coming down, whether on my head or feet, or how I was going to face. That was the difficulty in learning it, but it came to me after a while. And that suggests a curious thing - the way a feat comes to one, boy or man. In practising on the ground for something you want to do on the pad, you must get it exactly right - not 'pretty near.' 'Pretty near' may break your neck. You want to land just at a certain spot; not a couple of inches from it, but precisely there. Say it is a somersault. You may work at it for months without success. Then, all of a sudden, without your knowing how or it comes to you just as natural as if you had known it all your life, and so easy that you cannot tell to save your soul why you hadn't done it so from the start. After it comes that way you will have no more trouble in doing it."

Other circus men tell the same story in regard to their early training. It was hard work, but they liked it and found no cruelty in it. The harrowing tales of little Prince Leo and his brethren, as recited by the children's societies, have, undoubtedly, a foundation in fact, but they are exceptions to an honorable rule.

The weight of testimony in the matter of circus folks' treatment of their apprentices seems to sustain their claim that they are kind and not cruel; which cannot be truthfully said, it is to be feared, of the acrobats and gymnast. Indeed, all well-regulated circus men, from the "star" rider down to the canvas wrestler, give especial thanks that they are not acrobats and gymnasts. Prince Leo was apprenticed to an acrobat, which makes all the difference in the world.

The laws of New York and Massachusetts forbid the appearance in circus performances in those States of children under the age of sixteen years; consequently there is little disposition now among circus men in the East to take apprentices. Training boys and girls for the profession is mainly confined to persons already in it, as the occupation of their lives, bringing up their offspring to succeed them. Then there are private establishments in different parts of the country where children of non-professionals are inducted into these peculiar “arts and sciences." Of these establishments the following is believed to be a correct list:

James E. Cooke's, Newtown, L. I.
Eaton Stone's, Franklin Station, N. J.
B. W. Carroll's, Westchester, N. Y.
Martino Lowanda's, Frankfort, Philadelphia.
John O'Brien's, Frankfort, Philadelphia.
John Robinson's, Cincinnati, Ohio.
Sebastian Guagliani's, Middlebush, N. J.

Chapter V. Facts About Mr. Merryman

Not long since a western paper published a little interview with circus clown, in which he was made to say:

"I've heard it said that great actors are born, not made. It isn't that way with clowns. They make clowns, and I never knew one that was born that way." And again: “Every show has several boys in training. Whenever it happens that one of these boys. displays any ability as a mimic, they put him down for a clown, and then a clown is made, whether he wants to be or not."

When Frank Whittaker read that, he shook his head gravely in gentle but decided denial, and said softly in soliloquy "No, no, my son; you are wrong.”

What Frank Whittaker does not know about circuses and all sorts of circus performers in this country, within the, past fifty years, nobody knows, and it would not be worth while to try to find out.

"The young man means well, no doubt," said he, “and talks according to his lights. Perhaps he was made a clown by teaching, but the best are made by nature. Of all the famous old-time clowns I knew, only two could be said to have been taught to be clowns. All the others were naturally funny men and the originators of fun, and even those two must have had a bent in that direction or else they never could have achieved any distinction in the business. Any performer may turn out to be a clown, if he has comic genius in him, but not otherwise. He must first be a performer, at all events. Then, if he shows that he has a genius for making people laugh, as he inevitably must about a show if he has it in him, he will go on some day to try what he can do with the public, either to satisfy his own curiosity or at the request of the management, or perhaps to take the place of a regular clown who may be absent. You see all good circus men have to be general performers, able to do a variety of different acts, and if clowning happens to be in their repertoire - put there by nature - why, it is looked upon as simply one capability more to be used as occasion affords. If genius in that direction proves to be particularly strong, why, the man who has it may drop riding, vaulting, tumbling, and other heavy work, and only engage himself to clown.

"But, to talk of training a boy to be a clown, whether he will or not, I never heard of such a thing. You might is well talk of making man a singer when nature has gifted him with neither voice nor ear for music.

"A naturally funny man has got to be funny whether he will or not. I remember John E. Owens when he was a supernumerary, and how he used to make the other 'supes' and people about the stage laugh. He developed into a comedian, but he might just as well have become a clown, and if he had he would have been a good one. There have been hundreds of people who painted their faces and put on comic costumes and called themselves clowns, but they all lived a sort of Jonah's gourd existence, going down as rapidly as they came up.

"The first great clown that I recollect was Archy Madden in the old Mount Pitt circus, at the corner of Grand and Pitt streets. He was a comic singer, a fair tumbler, a medium still vaulter, could run and vault, rode two horses, and would keep people in a roar by his clownish ways. 'Old Skent,' was the name he was popularly known by - I can't say why - and he was a great favorite with the New York public, who used to pack the house at his benefits always, rain or shine.

"Major-Gen. Sanford, who was part owner of the Lafayette Amphitheatre, was a particular friend of his, and one time Archy played in both the Amphitheatre and the Mount Pitt circus in one evening, which was considered a great feat in those days. He eventually left the profession and turned temperance lecturer, in which vocation he was quite as successful as he had been in clowning, for he had the power to make his audiences cry and laugh by turns.

“Walter Williams, who came over here clowning with circus and played at the Broadway Amphitheatre - afterward the New York Tattersall's - was a fair general performer and a really good clown, but could not rival Archy Madden. The next clown of note who recurs to my memory was Joe Blackburn, a gentleman who had a fine collegiate education, and who took up the clowning business through a liking for it, simply. He traveled with Oscar and Purdy Brown's circus, the best performing circus in the world, in my opinion, in those days at least, and was a very great favorite in the South. Another Southern favorite, particularly in Baltimore, was Bill Myers, a good tumbler and an excellent clown. John Gossin came next, and was the boss in his day. John May, Joe Pentland, Dan Gardner, Sam Thrift, Bob Lowry, Sam Lathrop, Bill Creighton, Mike Saunders, Aleck Rockwell, John Wells, Joe Cleveau, Gill Eldred, Mat Buckley, Wilse Hammond, Charley Austin, Archie Hughes, Gil Gullen, Sam Long, George Stone, and John S. Whittaker, all old-time clowns, were not only clowns, but singers as well, and riders, tumblers, vaulters, slack and tight rope and wire performers, and several of them were good actors, also.

“A very accomplished clown of the old time was Nat Austin, or, perhaps, to do strict justice, to him, I should say jester rather than clown. He was master of French, Spanish and German, a generally well-educated man, and one of the best jesters that ever wore the cap and bells.

“Bill Worrell, the father of those well-known actresses, the Worrell sisters, was it good clown in his day. At one time I was ring master at Welch's Amphitheatre, Ninth and Chestnut streets, Philadelphia, when he, Pentland, Gardner, and Gossin were all under engagement, and my place for the fortnight they were there was not an enviable one, I assure you. They were all originators, not the sort of clowns that are made by teaching, but men of native humor, who could always see and utilize the funny side of anything, and they were liable to spring some new joke, or gag, or trick on the ring-master at any moment. Samuel Lathrop, the comedian, used to be a good clown. Billy Fay was a jester rather than a clown, and was also an excellent portrait painter. Out in Cincinnati his artistic work was very highly appreciated.

“Arthur Nelson, Dr. James Thayer, and later Dan Rice, were all fine jesters, but the king in their peculiar branch of the profession was W. F. Wallett. He was, by long odds, the best jester I ever heard, witty and prompt in his repartees, with a keen sense of the humorous and an almost magnetic sympathy with his audience that carried them right along with him.

"In those days, you must remember, we had no mammoth triple-centre-pole-and-three-rings circus tents, and a clown could easily make himself heard by the whole audience at once. But a steam man could hardly do that now.

"Dan Rice made his reputation as a jester by imitating Wallett in his Shakespearean and poetical quotations, but would have done better had he confined himself to legitimate clowning, which was his natural forte. William Stout was educated for the ministry before he took to clowning, and was in his day famous, not only as a clown, but as a wrestler and a herculean performer. It never appeared that his early religious training did him much harm in his business. Bill Gates graduated from clown to comedian at the Old Bowery Theatre.

“Clowns are, as a rule, the most genial and improvident of circus men. I see that Mr. Freshfield, or whoever he is, in the interview you have just shown me, talks about clowns having a fancy for buying farms. I don't believe any clown ever owned a farm much longer than it would take to throw a flip-flap and draw up new title deeds, without it might be Dan Rice, and he got his as a manager, not as a clown. No; the clown would doubtless buy a farm if he could, but how can he? His salary runs from $30 to $100 per week, according to his ability, generally averaging about $60, and that is only for a season of twenty-six to thirty weeks. Half the year he has to keep himself, with nothing coming in. How long would it take at that rate to buy a farm - even a little, pony sort of a farm?’

Top