Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-03-02
DAN RICE IS ALIVE.
The Clown is Old, but Still Able
to Talk About Himself.
Long Branch is the Home of the Once
Famous Jester-SOme Very Read
able "reminiscences.
Disguised With the Circus of To-Day - No
Money Left From All that He Has Made
In the Circus Business.
Snecial TO the Gazette

Special to the Gazette.
LONG BRANCH, March IA report
that Dan Rice, the once famous clown,
was dying in this New Jersey town,
brought your correspondent here. But
it is not serious illness that ails the old
Snowman, and he is quite able to sit up
and talk about himself. He has lived
quietly here since his retirement from
the ring twenty years ago.
81 am Disguised with the circus of to-
day. he said, (which is no more than
a big show. The idea of performances
in four rings at once is absurd, while the
clown, in former days the standard and
star of attraction of every circus, has
sunk to the level of a pantomimist. Oh!
for the circus of our daddies, when the
entrance of one into Wayback or Torpid
town meant holiday for all the country
around. The circus of to-day is but a
mountebank show. 1 term my friends
Barnum, the late Forepaugh, and the
others of their kind but mountebanks. -
After that outburst of condemnation of
the big circuses of the present, Dan Rice
was induced to talk-With the explicit
understanding that it was to be pub
lished-on the small oircuses of the past.
He said: 'sI think the gradual deca-
dence of the clown in this land has been
brought about by the encroachments on
the field Of fun by the news paper para
grapher. People used to go to circus
to laugh. l discovered that fact early in
my career and made money out of it. a
successful clown must possess more in
telleot, ability and originality than
comedian.
''No matter how badly clown may
feel, no matter what sorrows and cares
may burden his life, with laugh and jest
and sparkling Quib he must hold the un-
tagging interest of the audience. Some
times when borne down by insupportable
cares, harrassed by troubles and with a
breaking heart, 1 have played the jester,
to the great glee of multitudes. All,
there has been pathos in the jes ter g life,
tears as well as laughter, sunshine chased
away by shadows. All, well, life is like
a cocktail-it needs dash of bitters to
make it palatable. -
The retired clown heaved sigh. Then
he gave this new bit of history. F'Twas
when l was scrub-deck on Mis- sissippi
flatboat that 1 became great. 1 carried
the tails of President William Henry |
Harrison IS long great coat as he swept |
majestically down the gang-plank. But. |
unfortunately, my kindly Office proved |
fatal. lifted his coat so high as to ex-
pose his thinly clad neither limbs to the |
keen air until the ex-president contracted |
the cold from which he died. Here Is
another interesting assertion: ''The |
first talking clown was Joe Black |
burn, about 1871. He was uncle |
of the present Kentucky senator
of the same name. Joe was a
scholar as well az a gentlemanly |
jester, and was born in Mason county,
Ky. A graduate Of Danville college, he
was highly cultured and possessed of
marvellous wit, much wisdom, faultless
grace and Chesterieldlan manners. Chief
charm to the susceptible were his songs,
in a mellow, patheticallY sweet voice,
never to be forgotten. His wit was pure
and sparkling, his iests and songs models
of chasteness. Little wonder that he
was q man of many friends. w. f.
wallet, better known in England and
America as ''The Queens Jester, was
at the time a comedian of repute.
He studied Blackburn 8 creation of
the clown, and from him drew
his conception Of the character.
Wallet was the beau-ideal of a
'Touchstone.' He also was a collegian,
well up in standard literature, Shake
spsarean student and widely read man.
He became q clown, he told me, because
there was more money to be made by
playing the fool. Wallet had all the
easy assurance, gentle ways and polish
of society, but to my mind had not, in
its entirety, the right conception of his
character. He reoited Shakespeare in
in the ring whenever he could
apply it to circumstances, interpreting
truly the language of the author. Now,
I had different idea of the charac-
ter OF the clown, and early won the
title of Shakespearean jester, by my
little paraphrases of the Bard of Avon,
now so familiar TO all schooiboys. WAL
lett made his first American appear
snce in John Tryon's circus, in Astor
Place, in the fall of 1856. l made
my debut in New York at S. B.
Howe's circus, where Palmore's
opera house efterward stood in Chambers
street. Wallet was q great drawing
card in New York and attracted the at
tention cf the elite. / was then clown
to the American people. Al
though no direct challenges had passed
between Wallet and myself, it was gen.
orally understood that we were pitted