| Show Telegraph that unfailing kindliness and co which distinguish him his m mt the king of England has cx t to the long li fe of Henry Johnson the acrobat now a of the town of Grant hh h am nud within an ace of completing h Is year A man born nIne years h Waterloo was fought Is 4 t o excite interest and the law lawf o f change which has regulated every I of human enterprise within the p has not failed to leave s trong marks upon the life of o ne who graduated time stage c to the motor car era Henry J has seen wonderful transfer n in his own particular line of h days of te g atti ad the to our o wn elegant and period the t have been turned down I havo happened ince the c of the world wrote the s In flis essay amid many t hare happened since Henry J war a member of the l of Mr Sanger the father of Mr Lord George Sanger the veteran s of Park Farm East Finch Finchy b y Today the name of Lord George Georges i s a household word throughout time United Kingdom whore the c of dress parade and the gilt a nd glitter of the show carrIages have literally millions of juvenile h Yet circum which him r rt years attained o vast t wan started by a man who en t ered upon the world with a I 10 HenrI Johnsons fIrst master t he the son of a and ho came to Len dorm as a lad of iS years to see the s These were the good old Lo L imes vaunted in song and fable and o compared with our present I to the disadvantage of the hit t er Thousands of d ay makers may be ov r day i n the main arteries of metropolis folk from every corner of the c themselves with an a bo or freedom unparalleled in l illy place in tIm world In the youth of the first Sanger a man was Irce only so long ho was not arrested amb In any unhappy having to stroll upon bridge t he unlucky lad wan seize by a press gang away to sea for mome thai t e years amid to go through t he peninsular war One hundred ago Imo saw Nelson receive the fatal wound at time battle of ar But ho came home eventually much and was on ont I t payment of 10 pounds It was the first of this over overwhelming annUity which laid the of For the returned hero true British per set about to combat the world iii another direction As a pre he ot married at Bristol where his was the landlady of ofa a nubIle house called the Black Horse the 10 pounds lie bought a Peel showS and set it tip In a melancholy patch of ground from then un now as the Haymarket As timo went on he saved sufficient money to the scope of his ambition George IV oed and William IV sue By this time the present Mr Lord George Sanger had appeared on the scene nd ho was a lusty youth ring a bright particular passage in intha tha stork of which oc occurred in Hyde Park in the year ThUs at the huge fair given In honor of the coronation of Queen Vie By tIme close of her late majesty ty the takers us associated with great towns had become as cx as thO dodo A revival of such a festivity inthe pleasure garden domi was as impossible as driving a stockbroker to time city on a handcart The old man now hiving in was in 1538 thep a vigorous person tip time prime of life Of bt the juggler whom he hewan wan arid with whom he toured time country as d young man we know nothing There has been an em rush ot performers to this kingdom within living memory and outside It Henry Johnson how however ever remembers time coronation fair of 1838 for all was there in fact it ivan a Johnsona John John Johnson son to whom the most his historical of aim showmen left a legacy of started this taft in conjunction whim a partner The palm had presented a petition to the home ottice soliciting permission and tIme commIssioners ot and forests obligingly consented the boom of distant guns an announced the departure of the young queen for Westminster Abbey tnt i showmen struck gongs amid Un furled their cloths while the I of the booths tind stalls rolled up theft canvas fronts and commenced opera The theatre in the lark I or the Stranger of times not surprising for tIme per was completed in live utes the fair being open for oral consecutive weeks the takings of the treasury were in the the coronation faiL the peoples food cost them more decidedly A pot of beer momma to a shilling and a loaf to sixpence They are all fat giantesses time fair time the dwart the living skeletons the spotted boys the lady with a don blo two per performing forming pigs the horse and the last lasta a respectable grIzzly bear hj private life A few old people can remember the groat event amid among them was then 32 years of But the old man can recall much more a varied and prolonged experience lIe can conjure up the amid progress of the circus In England and its emergence front the strolling and vagabond stage Ho can cast his back to thO times whom a circus was a of auxiliary to some commercial hO Cheap Jack came round to the village hamlet with his marvelous par eels of and electro plate his staggering bargains iii and mysterious lan is that which makes braces and pocket pocketbooks books tim leading articles in a trade It was needful for attract the of tho yo Itch and tim openmouthed oldest In A circus on a small scale was the best possible method and by means of a lottery and sometimes by means of a collection the thereal real purpose of the itinerant was led up to In several cases however tho circus was an free and open entertainment and with all the devel of modern cleverness we von ture to say that tIme nimbleness of the mountebank gymnast was not That Henry Johnson should have appeared present and previous royal is not surprIsing 1 Cruelty in the exercise of the gym profession has been geI there Is crudi tT where dumb animals arc pressed Into the ervice and a special tion o this occurred at the date when was in his novitiate Th Into queen and her mother the of Kent were attending a race meeting at Tunbridge Wells and one of the acrobats on the was time cat then popularly ti more and up goes the donkey this performance the gym mist an ass to the top rungs of ii and then the lad tier and the animal the I mor I been thrown into his hat Tbs entertainment wa continued In rura I or years anti II I of time highest skill it I cruelty make it now of In it to cease time date when the circus be bea a class of i nept and began tu be more h under i the gymnast d it i nto an elegant Whereas h is n the t and o times had been content to ro oc c eive stray to trudge from t tb own to town his traps on hIs b ack to be by pollee and pam beadle and lectured by self s Justices time artiste what a pervading flavor ot to the word e untold gold Leotard at the Al l had lOO a amul only a t ow weeks Schaffer a aGerman German was paId 5 a week there Amid yet neither hi iS degree accompliShed more extraordinary than time tramping show showman man with the and the ladder making hl ivy from faIr to fair from races to races Henry Johnson was born his time so far as securing of money was concerned Since his youth the gymnast has blossomed i nto a veritable personage Ho is a amass mass of lace and lk and whereas was perforce con content tent with cotton anti fare No matter what he do his deeds obtained no dignity of notice in ina a single newspaper and many of the older gymnasts never saw their names in They were philosophically i resigned to their relegation to an n tenor social stratum and If fate de I creed that there be no for dinner they made the best of bread Yet it must not be that even In such a long life as that of Hen Henry ry Johnson the gymnast and the circus rider have not cast off their old moving altogether Here on the con and in America the traveling and Bainum Baileys to tour from year to year It is the music hail has permanently lifted the gym gymnast nast to a better sta us and helped him to a high salary We hear that stars are overpaid and are gradually ing more exorbitant Time lines arc un fallen to them in pleasant places but It is compo for either time of the acrobat time bg money lie demands When we wesee see the amounts expended In salaries today we are tempted to marvel how lii nast so much was procured for so little years ago David Roberts tha groat Royal exercised hid brilliant art in Edinburgh by painting all the scenery amid proper properties ties for ercus He received 25 for amid for taking entail parts in When the to grief the Lu ture Royal Academician once more went back to hoUse painting Scenic artists and have evolved considerably then but the fun of the gymnasts art have not evolved at all Two years ago an American at time amazed by a perfect perfectly ly high wail without any foothold Audiences were enthusiastic and rightly so Still the samne was done in a Drury Lane years ago Truly the gymnast is for all time and there is isas as little new time sun today as that Henry gymnast of first saw |
