Jacob Bates “With a Burlesque on Horsemanship”

On Tuesday, 28 Sept 1773—two and a half centuries ago today—Jacob Bates once again performed his feats of horsemanship at the bottom of the Mall on Boston Common.

Having already cut his top prices, Bates was trying to improve his act and show people more. When he first advertised in Boston, he promised to “perform on ONE, TWO, and THREE HORSES.”

In the notices he ran in multiple newspapers on 27 September, Bates now promised:

He will perform on One, Two, Three, & Four HORSES.
A Variety of Manly Exercises never seen here,
With a Burlesque on Horsemanship, or the
Taylor riding to Brentford.

“Billy Buttons, or the Tailor Riding to Brentford” was a skit developed only a few years earlier by an English performer named Philip Astley. Circus historians consider it the first documented clown act.

The skit may have been inspired by a satirical print issued by painter John Collett and engraver T. Stayner in 1768, as shown here. The idea was that an upstart tailor was setting out for the polls to vote, but was so not a gentleman that he couldn’t ride his horse properly.

In performance, this act was an excuse for various comical acrobatics with a horse: having trouble getting on, falling off, chasing the horse, being chased, riding backwards, hanging off one side or the other, and so on.

The act gained lasting popularity in Britain, inspiring more comical prints and picture books. Charles Dickens mentioned “the highly novel and laughable hippo-comedietta” by name in Hard Times.

The “Billy Buttons” skit eventually evolved into a circus act with a man coming out of the audience, foolish or drunk, and insisting on being able to ride one of the horses. That version makes an appearance in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, in which Huck doesn’t get the whole joke.

Jacob Bates was clearly trying to please the paying customers in Boston, but the town’s resistance to theatrics may have been too much of a challenge.

TOMORROW: The wrong kind of attention?