36-4,p38

ALL OUR YESTERDAYS

The First Juggler in Ireland

(From Vol. 3 of Henry Mayhew's "London Labour and the London Poor, 1861")

I'm a juggler, but I don't know if that's the right term, for some people calI conjurers jugglers. But it's wrong. When I was in Ireland they calIed me a "manualist. " The difference I makes between conjuring and juggling is that one's deceiving to the eye and the other's pleasing to the eye. Yes, that's it. It's dexterity.

I dare say I've been at juggling 40 years, for I was between 14 and 15 when I begun and I'm 56 now. I suppose I'm the oldest juggler alive.

One night I went to the theatre, and there I seed Ramo Samee doing his juggling. I only wanted to do as he did. Directly when I got home I got two of the plates and went into a back room and began practicing to make one turn round on the top of a stick. I broke nearly all the plates in the house doing this. That is, what I didn't break I cracked. I broke the entire set of a dozen plates, and yet couldn't do it. I got enough money to have a tin plate made with a deep rim, and with this plate I learnt it, so that I could afterwards do it with a crockery one.

I got a set of wooden balls turned and stuck coffin nails all over them so that they

looked like metal when they was up. I began teaching myself to chuck them. It took a long time learning it, but I was fond of it and determined to do it. Then I got some tin knives made and learnt to throw them. And I bought some iron rings, and bound them with red and blue tape to make them look handsome and I learnt to toss them the same as the balls.

I dare say I was a twelvemonth before I could juggle well. When I could throw the three balls middling tidy I used to do them on stilts, and that was more than ever a man attempted in them days. And yet I was only 16 or 17 years of age. I was the first man seed in Ireland either juggling or on the stilts. I'd balance pipes, straws, peacock's feathers and the twirling plate.

I'm very well known in London , and the police knows me so well they very seldom interfere with me. Sometimes they say, "That's not allowed you know, old man!" and I'd say, "I shan't be above two or three minutes," and then go on with the performance.

Juggling is the same now as ever it was, for there ain't no improvements on the old style as ever I heerd on. And I suppose the balls and knives and rings will last for a hundred years to come yet.

I should say there ain't above 20 jugglers in all England - indeed, I'm sure there ain't - such as goes pitching in the streets and towns. I know of only four others besides myself in London , unless some new ones have sprung up very lately.