A VISIT TO THE WAXWORKS.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2216, 2 April 1881, Page 3

A VISIT TO THE WAXWORKS.

[“ By “ The Loafhe.”] When the genial showman, Mr A. Ward, made his first start he wrote to the editor o£ the local paper where he commenced business. 'Xhe beneath remarks were the pith of his letter :—“I wont you should rite me a letter Bayin’ how the show business is in your plaae. My show consists at present of three moral Bares, a Kangaroo—an amusing little Boskal —wax figures of O. Washington, Gen. Taylor, Ooptain Kidd, and Doctor Webster in the act of killing Parkman, besides several miscellany us moral wax statoots of celebrated pirats and murderers. &c., ekallod by few and oxoeld by none,” The brief description thus given by Mr Ward of his Waxworks would suit similar shows all over the world. It aa iti the Waxwork bhow at present exhibiting in this town, and I hopo the proprietor will take a leaf out of the end of Mr Ward’s letter, and “ have my showbills done at your office.” Its a good show, though, is that of Messrs Ohriotofani and Co., and to uao the words of the immortal Mrs Jarley. “its calm and classical. No low boatings and knot-kings about; no jokings and squeaking like your precious Punches, but always the same, with a constantly unchanging air of coldness and gentility j and so like life, that if waxwork only spoke and walked about you’d hardly know the difference.” When little Null said she thought "it must be funny,” she was quenched sternly by Mrs Jarley, but I must confess I think I agree with the heroine of the Old Curiosity Shop, and think every waxwork show a funny show. Messrs Christofuni’s exhibition is certainly very funny. I’m perfoctly willing to allow that the posing of the various figures, and the grouping of some of the tragic scones, are very good, while the drosses are simply gorgeous. As Mrs Jarley says, ** Every expectation held out in the handbills is realised to tho utmost, and the whole forms an effect of imposing brilliancy hitherto unrivalled in tho country. .Remember that the price of admission is only one shilling, and that this is an opportunity which may never occur again !” But let us enter. The first waxy inhabitant you observe on coming

in is an old lady o£ considerable yean. I don’t know that she calls for much comment, but the fact is my attention was attracted to a gentleman in spectacles seated by her, and perusing the journal of the day, which I was horrified to see was, as Mr Potts, of Hatanswill would observe, our “ reptile contemporary,” I waa n® l *"? asking for my money to be returned, but as I hadn't paid anything to come in I dismissed the idea os frivolous. After paying our respects to the American gents, Messrs Peabody and A, Ward, wo come to the Twoheaded Nightingale. I append from the catalogue the writer’s life-like description of this extraordinary phenomenon : —-‘‘ The Eighth Wonder of the World ! Miss Minnie Christine-‘Two-headed Nightingale.’ Miss Minnie Christine io a coloured lady, born, consequently, of negro parents. She has two heads, four arms, four legs, and one body. She is a pleasant and well educated person, speaking English, German, and French fluently, also a little Spanish. It is very curious to hoar her speak different languages with her double mouths at the same time. The lady has two beautiful voices, singing duets charmingly ; when warbling a solo the voice and respiration is as one. There is never the slightest difference of opinion between her and her double ; they agree in all things, are hungry and thirsty at the same time, eat the same things, and divide everything, c even to a peanut/ When alone they converse on all

kinds of topics, rarely having a different thought, except occasionally being puzzled as to tho faces they have seen.” We are not informed whether the lady is married or not. If so, unless her temper is very good, the two tongues must bo a heavy handicap in domestic quarrels. Leaving this puzzling Dark Lidye we come to Isabella of Spain and Mary of Soots, both of whom hold out the hand of welcome to tho casual visitor, the latter evidently preferring to greet her guests than to take part in tho Judgement of Solomon, a striking tableau, particularly fancied by waxwork people, and which no doubt is most improving to youthful minds, to whom the quarrel scene before the wise king is very familiar. This tableau is very well worked up. Tho whole scene is taken in at a glance. The executioner holds tho baby by the hind leg with one hand, while the other holds a Damoclean sabre quivering in the air. His features are calm and undisturbed, so much so that no one can doubt that ho has been given “ the office ” by tho astute king. It is easy to pick the right mamma, who is on her knees watching the baby with much pathetic anxiety, while her rival seems more intent on a flirtation with the captain of the guard standing in front of her. His costume : s immense but convenient, for with a very alight change he could be transferred into Apollo, Captain Kidd, Socrates, or the Lord Mayor. It would be interesting to know how many parts this horo has played in the neces sarily varying mimes of the waxwork stage. From the expectant glance of old Sol the denouement is just about to burst prior to the falling of the curtain. The next, a lady in a blue jersey, is tho apotheosis of tho “ Sleeping Beauty.” Unlike her congener at Madame Tnesaud’s, she doesn’t breathe. Signor Ohristofani, however, intends shortly fixing her up with an improved bellows apparatus, which will much improve this part of tho show. She will then, like her celebrated prototype, be in the bills as taking her last sleep before her execution, and a tear will then be placed on the trickle by the best artist in Australia, as represent* tive of her dreams of what might have been Miss Nightingale tending a sick Crimean soldier is an effective picture. He looks a convalescent party, however, and is evidently not the man who kissed Miss Nightingale's “ Shadow on the wall.” A row of Royalties now follow. Donna Blanco, of whose ante cedents, I’m ashamed to say, I’m quite ignorant, but whose name reads like a circus Queen, is a neighbour of the Empress Eugenie, who, in her turn, is succeeded by the Princess Dagmar, Queen Victoria (a portrait evidently struck off on the refusal of Mr Gladstone to pay the Prince’s debts), Princess Alice, the Duchess of the bold Bucoleueh (a lady described in the catalogue as a celebrated beauty of the present reign, and with whom the soulpist has been very successful), Princess Alice and the Princess of Wales, who from her glance of extrema hanteur is evidently waiting on her old man to give him toco. The opening tableau of Ned Kelly’s desperate career now bursts on us with sudden surprise, and a most realistic scone it is. It gives one the idea that were such a thing possible the “wax flggurs” had given the tableau any amount of rehearsal, The centre figure of the picture is Sergeant (Scanlon lying dead. Standing at his back are the policemen Kennedy, with his hands in the air, and Lonegan, who appears anxious to address the meeting. Messrs Ned Kelly, Hart, Byrne, D. Kelly (all from the original cast) are covering the wretched minions of the law with the deadly pistols they so well know how to handle. This is illustrative of the “Teitjmpu of Vice,” but as Signor Ohristofani knows his business, he baa quickly supplemented it by the “ Victory of Virtue,” which is beautifully exhibited in the succeeding tableaux. Here Nemesis is well represented by Sergeant Steele and Guard Dowsott, who are plugging the legs of the gallant bushranger with slugs from their revolvers. The hawberk and body mail of the outlaw at bay are most effective, and his daring attitude, despairing though it be, shows that though, as Mr Barry Barry O’Neil used to sing,— “ He was hungry and foot sore and ill, He could look the whole world in the face, and I’d say Tho’ poor I’m a gentleman still! I ”

Mibb Kate Kelly is a member of the dramatis personae, but what ahe is intended to be doing lam unable to say. The proprietors of the show intend to make political use of this life-like tableau. It is intended to introduce the cont of the Kelly Hunt, as a groat proof of the quality of the bushrangers Australia can produce, and of the efficiency of the Victorian police. A row of what Mr A, Ward calls moral wax statoots of more bushrangers follows, and succeeding to these is the “ statoo” of that great benefactor to the female section of the community, “ Brigham Young.” This picture is alone worth twice the price of admission, being a most life-like portrait of one of our best known and popular citizens. 1 allude to Mr Oass. I sincerely trust arrangements may be made with the Signor to purchase this work of art to place amongst Mr Wilson's speeches and other curiosities of a bygone civic age. Thousands yet unborn would revel in the coming time to gaze upon the form and features of so distinguished a propbet as Oass, the Galileo of his time. We pass the Siamese twins, who though colored gentlemen, pale before the two-headed Nightingale Wo are not struck with Grimaldi, who looks a pudding beaded sort of party, and who, I’m afraid, was originally intended by the designer for Mr Spurgeon. The lady, Madame Dupree, sitting with him, is, however, one of the beet figures in the show, and would be hard to beat anywhere. We now have, placed in all the vivid integrity of a poetic fancy, one of the most tragic and affecting scenes ever recorded in the columns of yours or any other journal. I now speak of the massacre of the late lamented Prince Imperial by the Zulus. As you approach the well-posed tableau you come first to a stalwart Zulu, who is intently gazing at the manly form of a red-coated orderly, through whoso back he has just sent a beautiful assegai. The young Prince is, as might bo expected, the most prominent feature of the picture. Ho stands facing three most truculent looking Zulus. An assegai already quivers in his breast, and both he and his orderly seem awaiting the first tones of the barrel organ to droop off to slow music. The drosses and accessories are good. The last act of this strange eventful scene is the recent tragedy at the Opera House, where Mr Greer, a most respectable married man, shoots M. Soudry while sitting in the box with his wife. I don’t think this tableau is sufficiently worked up. The shootist is a mild-looking chop, who seems more like handing the wicked Frenchman a glass of sherry wine or red port than a bullet. However, that may be his confounded artifice, as the saying is. I have now run through the show, with one omission, and that is in connection with the Prince Imperial picture. There is only one outside spectator to the tragedy, and that is Mrs Yelverton though why she should have been placed to witness such an affair I can’t imagine. Its, I’m afraid, a slight anachronism, but perhaps the proprietory thought that the lady was not high-toned enough for the royal swells on the opposite side, and too good to place amongst the moral bushrangers. I have only to add that the show is well worth a shilling, and if my poor attempts to give your readers an idea have been at all successful, and should induce an extra number of visitors, I should bo only too happy to write for the signor an account of his show that would do honor, not only to him, but to the columns of the “Era."