Puck — June 19, 1878 — page 7: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

PUCK. 7 THE SHOWMAN'S STORY. ‘T was the Showman’s story, and he told it ‘as we were watching the circus pass by. “Yaas, sir, I’m what you might call a veteran. in the business. Jined the church at twenty, and the circus at twenty-one. I’ve been kinder irregular on the church question ever sence; but I’ve hung on steady to the show. “Yassir, I done some lively business when I was younger 'n I am now. I reckon I could have give ole P. T. Barnum himself a pint or two on interprise when I was a young man. But Tain’t done naathin’ reelly to amount to much sence my Ku-Klux business. “You never heerd of that? Well, now, that's kinder sing'lar. Most folks easter the Alle- ghaynies hev heerd of my Ku-Klux 'n’ my Victims. Quite a considerable crowd hev seen ‘em. Them Ku-Klux 'n’ the annexed victims constitooted the show sensation of their season. “Lemme see. That was nigh on to ‘leven years ago, in Johnson’s time. I bilieve they hedn't got a name for it in those days; but the bloody shirt was a-flutterin’ in the mornin’ breeze putty lively. The Ku-Klux was robbin’ hen-roosts and scarifyin’ niggers all through the South, and the papers was full on ’em. Least- ways the Democratic papers worn't so blamed anxious to get the latest reports; but the Repu- blican journals held up Aeir end. The illu- strated papers came out strong. They had picters of masks worn by the Ku-Klux; 'n’ views of mutilated fifteenth-amendments. That sort of thing seemed to be about all the public cared for. The show business was languishing. ““T was busted up in Skeneateles, N. Y.,ona Combination Mule Circus and ‘Thaumaturgical Show. The mules was all rights squar, steady, reliable animals, capable of affordin’ an even- ing’s harmless amusement without raisin’ a blush to the cheek of innocence—without raising no blushes nowheres - which you know is excep- tional for mules. They drawred well enough; the trouble was that I had an old fraud of a thaumaturgist, who couldn’t thaumaturge for a cent. He heeled over on the hat-trick; and the aujence give him an egg-testimonial. ‘That made the show unpopular; besides spiling the thaumaturgist. “Well, sir, I was most on my beam-ends when the idee come to me of a Ku-Klux Show. I don’t know how it come: it kinder dawned on me; but I seen it was an inspiration, and I sot right to work. I mortgaged my mules, and sold my thaumaturgist to a medical college, ’n’ advertised for Ku-Klux out of the proceeds. “The classes to which I addressed my ad- vertisement was the tramps and the chromo- agents. I got glorious specimens of each. Then I went down to Albany, where the people are powerful homely, and I raised two more re- cruits, Then there was two accidental finds, ‘The Godsends’I used to call ’em. They beat the deck for looks. That filled up the quota of Ku-Klux; but I had to get my assort- ment of victims. I wanted four niggers 'n’ two white men; ’n’ I got ’em. “Two of the colored gentlemen hed been in- jured in railroad accidents. One must hev een a fine-looking feller oncet on a time; but he'd been reconstructed, some years previous, by a cow-catcher, ’n’ the original ideas of his creator hed sof been improved upon. One nigger was pitted with small-pox to that extent that he might hev been said to be honey- combed. Number six hed been biled, in early youth, in a dyer’s vat; and it hed sot. He was purple pretty nearly all over, ‘cept where they'd tried to take it.out with acids; and there he was variegated. ‘The section of that man on which they had principally experimented looked like a panorama of the War struck by lightnin’, One scrofulous nigger tried to ring himself in on me; but I rejected him for a fraud. I like to be ginuwine whenever possible; even in busi- ness. Of the white men, one was a buzz-saw subject; and the other was a case of nateral twist. That man hed more deformity to the squar inch than any man I ever saw. He took easy to the show business; he himself, person- ally, was largely owing to the profession, His mother hed attended a circus shortly before he come on shore; 'n’ the contortionist hed made a marked impression on her. “T hed billed my show as extra-moral; and the morning I opened, at Fonda, I went round and called on all the ministers and deacons. One Democratic deacon couldn't see the moral- ity of my exhibition; but every one of the others fell right in and promised.to show up at night. I ain’t no politician, and I don’t wan’t to say naathin’ unfair to neither party; but I do b'lieve the majority of religious folks is Re- publicans. Ef you happen to be a Republican yourself, understand I don’t mean no offense. “The performance went off fust-rate. We had a full house; crowded with the élite of Fonda and the fashion of Skeneateles, such as they were. I had my Ku-Klux ranged on one side of the platform. They were the awfullest set of humans the Lord ever got together; and I swear I don’t b’lieve he could hev done it ef he hedn’t hed me to help him. ‘There wasn’t a man there thet wasn’t capable of arson, stra- tegy and spiles, to quote Shakspere; and to hev said that any one of them looked like.a professional sheep-stealer on trial for murder in the first degree would hev been to go into extravagant eulogy. Opposite ‘em was the vic- tims, with their wust side turned toward the congregation. We had pianner-music to begin with; a patriotic and Sunday-school pot-pourri, «Hail C’lumby ’ and ‘Golden Shore,’ to sorter strike the key-note of the exhibition; and then I got up and made a speech, and give a brief sketch of the state of affairs at the South, and the hatred of the conquered Southron for his dusky brother; and the methods he employed to take it out of the dusky. And as I went along, I illustrated my remarks with references to the subjects on view. I had a name and a history for each one, written up to match their looks by a newspaper man in Schenectady. Each Ku-Klux had a list of bloody achieve- ments that would hev turned a Comanche chief yaller with envy. I told jest how many niggers and Union men he'd killed; how he was captured, 'n’ what he hed to be fed on. Then I trotted out the Victims, and showed how they’d been mangled and excoriated by their ruthless oppressors. The pock-marked nigger hed been scourged barbarously, and his back was grilled with bright red paint, fearful expensive at retail, ’n’ between the pock 'n’ the parallel lines he looked orfle. I can’t com- pare him to naathin’ except the eend section of a tubular biler. The dyed nigger was kinder nervous. It was his debbew, and in order to bring him out to the best advantage, we hed to cut his garments rayther low in the back; which give him a sort of immodest feelin’. Besides, no man likes to make his debbew stern fore- most. Iain’t blamin’ him. One of my Ku- Klux fell asleep while I was tellin’ how he kep a lonely vigil of ten days ‘n’ ten nights in a dismal’ swamp, jest in order to shoot a man whose brother-in-law hed once talked familiarly with a Commissary in the United States army. But he looked cusseder 'n’ ever, if possible, when he was asleep, and I forgave him. “TI forgot to say that all my Ku-Klux were rigged up with revolvers ‘n' guns 'n’ cowhides ‘n’ torches 'n’ things. That was realism, and it took. All "long the road we jest raked the cash. “We never had much competition; but when we did, I used to play it heavy. One nigger was about the complexion of putty; ’n’ we ex- hibited him oncet or twice as a corpse. Some- times we chained up a couple of the Ku-Klux, to make the thing look solider. ‘The God- sends’ looked especially well manacled. Some of "em were never allowed to wash. Then there was a nigger about the show, who wasn’t in the regular dramatic company, and who wouldn't show himself on the platform. But we used to get ahead of him by circulatin’ mysterious references to the wrongs the Ku-Klux had done him, and statin’ that he had received a fatal blow to his hopes of posterity. But the dur fool went in swimming at Portsmouth. “1 don't know how much longer we might hev gone on makin’ money hand over fist; but the hull blame ongrateful crowd began to weaken on me. They hadn't no more prin- ciple ‘n so many musk-rats,.'n’ they hadn't half the savey. First off, a consumptive man in Chatham-Four-Corners licked my boss Ku-Klux all to pieces. And I had internal troubles. There was one of the Victims whom you wouldn't readily recognize out of his war-paint; and I used to keep him in the box-office iz the afternoons. He beat me out of fifty per cent of the sales, and whacked up with his chum in the Kluxes. Then there was one of the des- rate ruffians whose wife hed gone back on im, 'n’ run away with another feller; and he got into a habit of crying; and he cried on the latform two or three times, To match him I ad a Victim, a nigger, who grinned like a chissy-cat all the evening. Besides, there was another of the oppremed who was all the time kickin because the paint hurt his skin, which was tender. Another ockerd thing was that my Victims were all bad characters, and used to get drunk and give away the morality of the show on slight provocation. “But the worst blow I got was when my second-worst: Klux got to attendin’ church. Every place we stayed over Sunday, that wild, homicidal Georgian went to meetin’ twice a day. Now, I’maConnecticut man; my father was a deacon in good standin’, and I’ve taught a Sunday-school. I b'lieve in religion; but a Ku-Klux show is business. That man nearly got Jesus at Farmingham. I heerd he was to meetin’; followed him up and found him writhin’ on the anxious-seat, in a state of reli- gous ecstasy. But I was ekil to the occasion. I hauled him off, and reproached him for dis- turbin’ the services while in a state of beastly intoxication. Then I made a speech to the congregation, ’n’ told ’em to let him be an orfle example to em, 'n’ then I called a deacon to help me, and we took him away. “On our way the deacon began to grow cool in his manner, and to hint that my busi- ness was ungodly. I headed him off d’reckly; repeated my remarks about the Klux bein’ an orfie example, and asked him to come to my show and see for himself. Then I shoved a clip-ticket into his hand, 'n’ he said mebbe there was some good in it after all. Wonder- ful how easy religion backs down into business. “They broke up the show at last. One of. my Kluxes hed left a wife, thirty years before, in East Haddam, Conn. She was in the aujence the night we showed there. She seen him. I thought ’twas the Fourther July. That woman lit out for the platform and demoral- ized the bulldozers in about six seconds 'n’ a half. After that, I did n't think it worth while goin’ on much further with what was left of the show. And sence then, I’ve kinder shet down on the profession. “I did have some idee, at the beginning of this Yuropian war, of revivin’ the sane thing with Bashi-Bazouks 'n’ Bulgarian victims. But I concluded not to. You see, them Bazouks ain’t bulldozers; they’re butchers. They’re all for cutting folks up. And apart from the fact that I ain’t got no facilities for exhibitin’ canned meats, I don’t reely think the public taste is ejucated up to that standpoint just yet.” H.C. peaicen | comicbooks.com