for it is only by hard practice that the agility
of the acrobats and horsemen can be kept up.
Miss Caroline Crochett (name in the bill, Mdlle.
Salvadori de Medici) is being put through a
new act by her uncle. She is dressed in a short
ballet skirt, and has on a pair of light canvas
shoes. She takes the various leaps with
wonderful precision, and only once does she miss
her "tip." For a long hour, until both horse and
lady show signs of great fatigue, she is kept at
her lesson; and at night the policy of this
rehearsal is apparent, for none of the company are
rewarded with louder plaudits than Mdlle. de
Medici. In various quiet places of the ring,
little boys are trying who can twist himself into
the most fantastic shapes; their fathers, or the
persons to whom they are apprenticed,
superintending their tumbling, and sometimes joining in
it. In another corner, Professor de Bondirini
is practising his three sons for their drawing-
room entertainment. One of them is only four
years of age; he is the little fellow that comes
on as a clown, and has so many oranges and six-
pences thrown him. Already, he can tumble
like a ten-year old; he made his début two
years ago as Tom Thumb, and has performed all
sorts of business—from Cora's child, to being
baked in a pie for the clown's dinner.

How knowingly Tom Hughes glides down
that rope, descending in slow time, whirling
round and round. He is an ugly-looking fellow
just now: "pock-pitted," and badly dressed; but
at night with his "air" plastered with grease,
and his clean white tights and close-fitting
jacket, he will look graceful enough, appearing
in the bills as the descending Mercury.
Now is the time to find out the secrets of the
prison-house; the face of that pale-looking
youth in the rather fast Tweed suit haunts you
no doubt—no wonder; that is the lady who
has been creating all the winter a great sensation.
This wonderful feat of a man passing for many
years as a handsome woman, although a great
fact of Circus life, has never yet been publicly
known. Neither is it publicly known that
most of our best equestrians are Irishmen; all
the great names familiar to the ring are Milesian
in their sound, and the manners and speech of
their possessors smack of the Emerald Isle.
My own friend, the German Hercules, Herr
Strasburg, is a Connemara man, and was picked
up originally by a travelling Circus proprietor,
who saw his great strength, and knew what, by
a little art, could be made of it.

Let me now speak of the art of getting up
"wheezes," as the clown's jokes are called. It
is a very simple affair. In the scenes to which I
act as clown, I arrange my little patter with the
ring-master. If I go in with Miss Caroline, I
tell him first, that I will do the names of the
streets; he takes his cue from that, and asks
me some trifling question which brings out the
names of all the principal streets in the town.
Thus: a desponding person ought to live in
Hope-street, sir; a thief should have his house
in Steel's-place; a lady who is fond of flowers
should live in Rose-street; a humorist in
Merilies-court, and so on. Much of what is said,
however, is arranged on the spur of the
moment; the clown gives the ring-master his cue as
they walk round following the horse; and at the
next pause—there are at least two pauses to an
act of horsemanship, for each scene is divided,
so to speak, into an exordium, an argument,
and a peroration—the clown flies off in a verse
or two of poetry about

What are lovely woman's sparkling eyes
Compared to Bagot's mutton-pies?

or,

Scots wha hae wi Wallace bled,
Scots wham Bruce has often led;
If you want to fit your head,
Rush to Ross the hatter's.

At rehearsals there is usually a great
consumption of beer, and any quantity of
professional slang, with some talk about last
Sunday's dinner, and speculation about roast-
pork for next Sunday. As to Blondin, or
Léotard, all the men in the place, according to
their own idea, are quite equal to him; and
it is generally true that our Circus acrobats
could walk on a tight-rope at any height if, as
they say, they had the head-piece for it—it is
all a matter of nerve. There have been far
greater men in the profession than either Blondin
or Léotard. The greatest I take to have been
a pantomimist and acrobat—a professional of
the far-back ancient time, who performed for
love. The story is told by Herodotus. A
certain king wishing to get his daughter married,
several young princes disputed for the honour of
her hand. One of them appeared to be a marvellous
proficient in the pantomimic art. In his
enthusiasm and desire to astonish the princess he
outdid himself; for, after having represented all
manner of passions with his hands, he stood
upon his head and expressed his tenderness and
despair in the most affecting manner by the
movement of his legs.

It was lately mentioned at a "crowner's
quest," that in seven months there had been no
fewer than seven violent deaths among acrobatic
performers in the three kingdoms. But what of all
that? The never-ending cry still resounds from
all the shows of the country, "Walk up, walk
up, ladies and gentlemen, this is the best booth
in all the fair!" And accordingly on all sides
there is a crowd of "talent" ready to feed
the market; there is strong competition for
employment even among acrobats and
mountebanks. One man will stand against a board
and allow a companion to surround him on all
sides with naked daggers flung from a distance.
Has not Mr. James Cooke written to the Era
that he has "performed the astounding feat of
throwing a somersault four times in the air before
reaching the ground;" and is it not the life
ambition of Signor Jerome Mascaroni to earn money
by imitating the ape? Another man will balance
himself, head downward, on a pole thirty feet
high, and in that position drain a bumper to the
health of the audience. Somehow, the physical
culture and nerve requisite for such
performances are more than ever abundant; for ten