This version attempts to mimic Datas' book. The paging and text follows
the book's layout as far as possible.
CHAPTER VI
BARNUM AND CRIPPEN
It was through Peter Jackson, the most cultured
coloured fighter I ever knew, that I met the great
Phineas T. Barnum. Jackson toured with Bar-
num, the greatest showman the world has ever
known, and the originator of that classic yet true
saying: "There's a sucker born every minute."
Barnum it was who eventually prevailed upon
Peter Jackson to come to England, where he
became as popular a figure as any fighter who
ever landed on these shores. He had been taking
on all comers with Barnum, and frequently went
into the ring of the circus, and took on two black
men at a time. At first he only fought black men,
but as his fighting abilities increased he was
matched against white men, with what result
you know. He was certainly one of the most
popular champions who ever gripped the imagin-
ation of the public. When his fighting career was
over, he returned to the circus, and toured with
93
94 DATAS: THE MEMORY MAN
the same circus with which I afterwards travelled
----Wirth's. He finished his days with them at
Roma, Queensland, where, strangely enough, he
died from chest trouble.
From my earliest days I had cultivated my
memory more by way of recreation than any-
thing else. Now I was about fifteen years of age
when Barnum came to England for the first time
with the usual flourish of trumpets which
heralded his arrival at any place. He opened at
the Olympia in February, 1890----I remember
there was a terrible frost at the time. Am I right,
sir ? The first opportunity I got 1 slipped up to
this mammoth show determined to see Barnum
himself and ask him for a job. I thought he
might take me on as a sort of freak, for even at
this early age I had mastered most of the dates
of all the important events in the world.
I bearded the great man in his den, and he
received me with the brusque kindliness which
was his characteristic. I told him what I wanted,
and he laughed outright.
"You're too young, kid," he roared. "You
come back in a year or two, and we'll talk
business."
But I was not having that. "Too young?" I
echoed, "anyrate I can tell you all about yourself.
You were the son of a tailor and were born in
BARNUM-AND CRIPPEN 95
Bridgeport, Connecticut, on the 5th July, 1810.
Your grandfather was a great practical joker, and
so are you. You opened the American Museum
on the 1st January, 1842, and then started to
travel the States after you had made a great suc-
cess of it. Your success came partly through a
dodge. You hired a Chinaman to walk around
the square of buildings, placing a brick at each
corner, and carrying a fifth brick. As he walked
round and round he picked up one brick, and put
down the one he was carrying. Crowds followed
him asking questions, but he never uttered a
word in reply, and then when he walked to your
museum the crowds followed him in, and----your
show was made.
"Your show was burnt to the ground twice
once at Brooklyn, in 1868, and again at Bridge-
port in 1872. In order to recoup yourself of
your losses, you engaged an island upon which
you advertised that there would be a free exhi-
bition of all your freaks, and menagerie, etc.
You hired all the ferry boats, and advertised
that there would be no charge either to cross to
the island or to enter the show. The people
crossed in thousands, and then when you got
them there you charged them about six times
the ordinary fare to bring them back again.
"In 1882 you bought Jumbo, the largest ele-
96 DATAS: THE MEMORY MAN
phant in the world, from our London Zoo. You
paid œ2,000, and there was a general outcry
against our parting with the beast. You organ-
ised the outcry as part of your publicity. Jumbo
slipped and was killed crossing a railway line at
St. Thomas, Ontario, on the 18th September,
1885, and the name of his keeper was Scott.
You----"
But Barnum had heard plenty. "That's
enough, young 'un," he said, "just get a few
more dates into that head of yours, and when I
come back again next year, I'll give you the en-
gagement of your life."
I could have jumped for joy, but----it just did
not happen, for before the "next year" came, the
great showman had passed on. He died on the
7th April, 1891, When the show next came to
this country it was in 1898, and I went straight
along to his son-in-law, Anthony Bailey----it was
then Barnum and Bailey's you may remember-
to whom I put up the same proposition. Young
Bailey was not the least bit impressed.
"Impossible," he remarked, when I told him
that I could tell him the date of anything that
ever happened in history, or any event of impor-
tance. "Impossible----you could not remember
all those dates."
"Try me," I begged, but he "could not be
BARNUM-AND CRIPPEN 97
bothered." A few years later I was in the States
doing my big act on all the finest vaudeville
stages, and this time it was young Bailey who
came to me as I sat with Klaw and Erlanger, the
two magnates who had booked me. He badly
wanted me to go with his show then, but: "I
guess you haven't got the money to buy me
now," I told him. "It would cost you a million
dollars." He was very disgusted.
But to return to Barnum. After I had aston-
ished him with my brief history of his career, he
personally took me around his show, introducing
me to a number of the freaks, and I feel that I
shall not be giving away professional secrets if
I lift the veil on a bit of the humbug practised by
this amazing old man.
"Come along and see my famous `Zip'," he
suggested, and along I went. "Zip" was Bar-
num's famous "What Is It ?" and he was surely
the most uncanny sight you ever looked upon.
Imagine a well-built, thick-set something with
wild yet unseeing eyes, with a ridiculous tuft of
hair upon the top of a head which otherwise was
clean shaven. There was a similar tuft upon his
chin adding to the incongruity of his appearance.
He was supposed to be a wild man whom
Barnum had picked up in his travels, but I got
to know him very well in the days which fol-
98 DATAS: THE MEMORY MAN
lowed, for you can guess that I spent every
minute I could spare at the show. And from
his own lips I heard the story of how he came to
be a "freak", and also something of his past life.
"I was a surgeon in the Northern Army under
General Grant," he told me, "having been edu-
cated at Harvard. I got all the experience I
wanted during that war, and many a time I have
had to conduct some of the most terrible ampu-
tations and operations on the field without any
anaesthetics. Afterwards I settled down in
Brooklyn, and it was there that I first met Bar-
num. He was looking out for a new draw for his
show, and then he looked hard at me for a
second, slapped me vigorously on the back, and
cried: `You're the very man for the job.'
"I looked at him amazed. `What job ?' I asked
him, and he beamed. `Why----Barnum's "What Is
It ?",' and again I looked at him in astonishment.
`What is what ?' I inquired, and then he ex-
plained his idea. `We'll get you up to look the
oddest thing the public ever saw. We'll tell 'em
I found you in the wilds, and that you have mys-
tified the scientists of the world. We'll bill you
as the most marvellous freak ever seen, and you'll
make a pot of money.'
" `No thanks,' I replied, but he was simply
bubbling over with the idea. `Son----there's a
BARNUM-AND CRIPPEN 99
fortune in it for you. All you've got to do is to
sit there and look vacant. Roll your eyes now
4 and again, and make no reply to any questions.
' 'I'll do the rest.' And he did."
The last I heard of "Zip----Barnum's What Is
It" was when I saw him living way out on a gor-
geous ranch in Tennessee, where he had retired
after making the promised fortune. We laughed
over those days when this highly cultured man
had fooled the world for years so thoroughly
under the auspices of the greatest fooler ever
known. Of course I made friends with a number
of the other freaks; as for example the elastic-
skinned man who could pull his skin over his
head as though he were pulling off a shirt, and
the fat lady whose greatest bugbear was the
difficulty of keeping up her avoirdupois.
"Laddie," she told me once, "if ever you fall
in love with a woman don't let her go in for the
show business as a fat woman. The only joy I
get in life is when I am showing. Then I can
mix with the other humans in the world, but
after that----well, I have to devote it to stuffing
all the grub I can get down my throat until I am
nearly sick" and if I happen to fancy a drink I lose
a stone in weight in no time, and that's bad for
business. The public like their fat women
plump, believe me, kid."
100 DATAS: THE MEMORY MAN
So I assured her that if ever I did marry a fat
woman, I would keep her out of the circus busi-
ness.
Another interesting character I met during my
American travels was McCarthy, one of the most
notorious members of the Jesse James gang, the
bandits who plagued police and public for so
long. Mac had only just come out of Joliet gaol,
whither he had been sent for a life term following
one of the hold-ups for which the gang were
notorious. Mails and trains were their speciality,
and they struck terror into the hearts of travellers
in those days on account of their daring and des-
peration.
McCarthy had been captured during one of
the hold-ups, but Jesse James and his brother
had made their usual escape. They would ride
into a town, and hold up a store in open day-
light, then dash off to their secret retreat with a
posse of police on their heels, only to dodge them
and leave them as baffled as ever. Mac told me
that whilst he was in Joliet he met Neil Cream,
the murderer, who was just completing a life
sentence for one of his numerous crimes. Even-
tually Cream came to this country, where he was
executed for the murder of Matilda Clover-
although accused of having murdered three other
women besides.
BARNUM-AND CRIPPEN 101
McCarthy described Cream as one of the
"dirtiest bits of work" he had ever seen. Thor-
oughly evil in mind, he yet had a wholesale con-
tempt for all the others in like plight to himself,
and was one of the most unpopular prisoners in
the gaol. But I shall have more to say about
Neil Cream when I come to deal with execu-
tioners I have met, for he was executed at New-
gate by my old friend Billington, in 1892
I heard from McCarthy how the news had
come to him in gaol that Jesse James had been
shot dead by his brother whilst in the act of
hanging up a picture. He learned that it was
due to jealousy over some woman who had be-
trayed the brother.
I travelled back to England on the Teutonic,
having sprinted aboard three days before she
sailed to get away from Leftie Louie, and the
other thugs who were after me. On the way
across we passed the German liner Vaderland,
and the captain signalled to us that Mrs. May-
brick, that tragic figure who was found guilty of
murdering her husband, was aboard, on her way
back to the States.
Of course I had often been asked the dates in
connection with this story, and at the next con-
cert on board the question was asked again. She
was born in Detroit in 1862, her mother being
102 DATAS: THE MEMORY MAN
the Baroness von Roques. She married Dr.
James Maybrick on the 27th June, 1881, at St.
James's Church, Piccadilly. Two children were
born to them. She murdered her husband in
1889, was brought to trial and sentenced to death
on the 7th August, 1889, but the sentence was
commuted to one of penal servitude for life.
Her counsel was Lord Russell, of Killowen, who
believed implicitly in her innocence. I met him
on several occasions in after years at various
functions, and we had many a chat over this
most intriguing case. She was reprieved on the
19th August, 1889, and taken to Woking Prison,
where she remained for a time. During this
period she was permitted to have photographs
of her two little girls in her cells, but these were
afterwards taken away, and the girls were never
allowed to recognise their mother after her con-
viction. This, perhaps, was the greatest tragedy
in her life.
After being at Woking for a time she was
removed to Aylesbury, where she served the re-
mainder of her sentence, being released from
Aylesbury in January, 1904, She was then sent
to a home in Truro to recuperate, being finally re-
leased from there on my birthday, the 20th July,
1904. Eventually she went back to the States,
and it was on that voyage that her boat signalled
BARNUM-AND CRIPPEN 103
the news to ours. She always protested her inno-
cence of the crime, and wrote a book called "My
Fifteen Lost Years".
And as Crippen also came from Detroit, and
was born on the same day as Mrs. Maybrick, I
cannot do better than relate here the story of my
many meetings with this extraordinary man,
whose love for a woman other than his wife led
him to the scaffold :for as vile a murder as has
ever been committed. I knew both Crippen and
his ill-fated wife, Belle Elmore, very well. Belle
and I appeared many times on the same bill
together, and we have had many a chat together
in her dressing-room. It was there that I learned
of some of her worries in connection with the
peculiar-looking man with the deep-set eyes, and
no eyebrows, who had such an uncanny fascina-
tion for women. She probably told me more
about the dark side of her life than anyone, for
always she was extremely sensitive and proud,
and anxious that her friends should not know the
type of man Crippen----or as we knew him then,
Hawley----really was. But many is the time she
has cried when relating the story of her life with
him, and maybe if it had not been for her taxing
her husband with certain letters written in the
handwriting of different women in his pocket,
she might have been alive to-day.
104 DATAS: THE MEMORY MAN
As she described him to me, Crippen was
"originally a tooth plumber in the States at a
dollar a time". I have always remembered that
little crack of hers.. The first time I met Crippen
was when I was at the Palace Theatre in 1902,
He used to come to the stage door, and make
appointments to see various members of the
company who were his dental clients. He had
given up his famous Munion's Ear Cure business
at that time, and had opened his dental business
in New Oxford Street. He was very pally with
Blake, the stage-doorkeeper, who died in
August, 1929, and he had a pretty good connec-
tion in the profession, for he certainly was a very
cute dentist as I can testify from experience.
I appeared for twelve consecutive months at
the Palace, and consequently got to know the
little man with the piercing eyes, but one night
I was slipping out of the stage door with a raging
toothache. In fact I was going to dash across the
road to a convenient hostelry to get a glass of
port. Belle Elmore was in the chorus at that
time. Crippen saw me coming out, and said :
"Hullo, old man----how are you ?" I told him
how my teeth were aching, and he said: "Let's
have a look at them?" and I opened my mouth.
"Step back into the light of the doorway," he
remarked. I stepped back, and obligingly opened
BARNUM-AND CRIPPEN 105
my mouth once more, with old Blake looking on
with a grin. Before I knew what had happened
I felt a sudden wrench, a sharp pain, and behold
----Crippen had whisked two of my teeth out like
winking.
"Come and have a drink ?" he said. "I won't
charge you anything for that." But I guess it
cost me a lot more than his fees, for he was a
pretty hard drinker, although I never saw him
drunk. Belle told me that he always started the
day with a glass of stout for his breakfast, and
at mid-day he would make his way to the old
Cock Tavern in Shaftesbury Avenue, where he
would start off with a whisky and soda, following
this up with several glasses of beer----stout usual-
ly, with more spirits or wine to follow.
His favourite haunt in the evening was a little
public-house in Peckham, where they used to
hold dances, and there the dapper little dentist
would disport himself with the girls who flocked
to the place. He was a quaint little devil, always
imperturbable, and never once did I see him lose
his temper. In fact on one occasion when a
fellow knocked him down during a public-house
brawl, he simply picked himself up from the
floor and smilingly dusted himself down with a
handkerchief.
But that is a side which was generally known
106 DATAS: THE MEMORY MAN
to those who became acquainted with him. I
want to take you behind the scenes of his life as
it was revealed to me by Belle Elmore when over
a glass of Guinness which I would send out for,
she waxed confidential. I have known her weep
over her "Harvey", and confide to me all the
agony of mind she went through because of his
association with other women.
"I was an abandoned woman when Peter
picked me up off the streets," she blurted out
once. "I was seventeen years of age, and right
up against it. That was in the States. He took
me in and looked after me, and then he married
me. I was right down and out when he found me,
and was crying. He came up to me and spoke
kindly, and it was the first kind word I had heard
for weeks. I was glad to marry him, for God
knows what would have happened to me if he
had not come along just then."
Neither Belle nor I dreamed then of the terri-
ble fate which lay in store for her. She was a
finely built, charming, attractive woman, with a
tremendous fascination for men, and un-
doubtedly Crippen saw the possibilities when he
first saw her in all her fresh young beauty. He
brought her to London, and there it was not long
before Belle began to get stage engagements
which helped considerably to further the nefarious
BARNUM-AND CRIPPEN 107
ends of Crippen. He seemed to hold a dominat-
ing sway over Belle even towards the end when
she knew him for what he was. Often she told
me that she wished she could break away from
him. This would be after some fresh discovery
of his philandering with another woman. But
she could not bring herself to leave him.
"When I began to get a bit known over here,"
she told me, "I soon found out what he was. I
had been on the streets before, but now well-
he soon got me on the `badger' game. I fell into
it because I loved him, and although I hated the
life, he made me go on with it, and sometimes
when I refused, he would threaten to beat me,
and I should have died if ever he had laid a hand
on me.
"The men used to come round to the stage
door, or else I would be introduced to them at
parties or restaurants. I was better looking in
those early days, and some of the best known
people in town seemed to find me attractive.
Well-known Members of Parliament, titled
people, and wealthy business men would come
round to the flat, and whilst they were there
Peter would turn up and play the injured hus-
band game. Sometimes he would be tearful at
his `discovery' of my unfaithfulness, and at other
times he would pretend to be violently angry,
108 DATAS: THE MEMORY MAN
and threaten all sorts of things, and the men to
avoid the scandal would offer him large sums of
money. I used to cry----but they were real tears.
Tears at the thought of the man I loved being a
party to such a rotten thing.
"I stuck that all right, and so long as I was
content to carry on with this moral blackmail he
was kindness itself, but, when I discovered that
he was going about with other women, I changed
completely. I began to bully and row him. There
was never much real happiness after that, al-
though he managed to get round me, and I can-
not get away from him."
That was what Belle Elmore told me long
before the tragedy which came to her was even
dreamed of. It throws a lurid light on the stories
which were told afterwards, and which were cir-
culated by Crippen to the effect that he had dis-
covered that his wife was having affairs with
other men. It was perfectly true----but what
Crippen did not say was that these "affairs"
were carried on at his instigation, and for his
profit. I believed Belle Elmore. There was no
reason why she should have told me these things.
I can see her now----a much be jewelled woman
on the plump side towards the end, rather stri-
dent in voice, weeping over this far from attrac-
tive man with the straggling moustache, and
BARNUM-AND CRIPPEN 109
staring eyes. She was immensely fond of jewel-
lery, and had a quantity which I believe Crippen
coveted for the slim and dainty typist with whom
he undoubtedly fell in love, and for whom he
undoubtedly murdered Belle Elmore whom he
used to call Cora.
The latter was a very ambitious woman, and
had visions of herself as a second Marie Lloyd,
but she never got anywhere on the music-hall
stage, for in fact she had very little real ability.
She was one of the kindest-hearted women you
could ever meet, and I have seen her send out
for a whole bunch of cakes for the children of
troupes who happened to be on the same bill.
Those were the days when the cake walk rage
was at its height, and there were quite a number
of kiddies on the stage at the time. Cakes and
ginger beer she would send for, and have the
whole crowd in her dressing-room to entertain.
And if there was any other woman in distress
she could always find a good pal in Belle Elmore
for she had been up against it herself, and she
never forgot.
It was in 1908 that they went to Hilldrop
Crescent, Camden Town. And it was on the
21st January, that Crippen and his wife gave a
little party at the house, entertaining some
friends, theatrical and otherwise. From that
110 DATAS: THE MEMORY MAN
night she was never seen alive again. A few days
afterwards a letter was received at the offices of
the Music Hall Ladies' Guild, of which she was
a leading light, handing in her resignation, and
in March it was announced by Crippen that his
wife had gone to California and died there.
In fact she was even then lying buried in the
little cellar of the house at Hilldrop Crescent,
where her remains were afterwards found, when
suspicions were aroused in the minds of her
friends, and search was made. Crippen was
interrogated by the police and explained to them
that his story of her death was not correct, but
that they had quarrelled, and she had simply left
him. He had lied to avoid the scandal. The
police searched the house, but found nothing
suspicious. When subsequently they discovered
that both Crippen and Miss Le Neve had left
the country, a more careful search of the prem-
ises was made, and all that remained of the
unhappy woman was found. Crippen and Miss
Le Neve, disguised as a boy and travelling as his
"son", were aboard the Montrose when the re-
mains were found, and they might have escaped
arrest but for the wireless description which had
been broadcasted throughout the world. Captain
Kendall of the Montrose recognised Crippen,
and the pair were arrested, and eventually ex-
BARNUM-AND CRIPPEN 111
tradited to this country, where Crippen and the
girl stood their trial. Crippen was sentenced to
death, but the girl was acquitted. It is certain
that she knew nothing whatever about the crime,
although she had actually slept in the house on
the night following the murder. Crippen was
executed on the 23rd November, 1910, and not
long afterwards I was shaved by Ellis, the execu-
tioner, who told me the story of the execution.
Home Page.