266 Among Men and Horses. 



relinquish the idea of a class, and to give either at the Circus 

 or in the Wanderers' Ground a public performance, to which, 

 they said, everyone would come. This was a very embar- 

 rassing dilemma in which I found myself. A class was 

 obviously out of the question, and a public performance 

 presented both dangers and difficulties. As horses are not 

 bred around Johannesburg, I did no know where to procure 

 subjects, and even if I got likely ones, I could not tell if they 

 would * play up ' on the opening night. Giving a show of this 

 kind on the Gold Fields was a very different thing to one in 

 London ; for instead of a lot of law-abiding Cockneys who 

 knew nothing about horses, I would have to face an expert 

 audience, largely composed of a rough element that would 

 stand no trifling. Had I had a circus, a theatrical troupe, a 

 collection of performing dogs, or any show, the performers 

 in which I could have been certain would do their ' turns ' 

 properly, my mind would have been at rest ; but . I had to 

 rely on actors who would give me no guarantee that they 

 would play their parts in the required manner. I confided 

 my trouble to Mr Bonamicci, who had formerly been Frank 

 Fillis's manager. I found him intelligent, sympathetic, cap- 

 able, resourceful, and trustworthy in every way. We scoured 

 the city and came across a stage-coach horse which no one 

 up to then had been able to ride, on account of his being a 

 very bad buckjumper. The owner, Mr Donaldson, very 

 kindly promised to lend me this animal and another that was 

 equally bad, so I was told. Mr Butters, who is one of the 

 chief men in the Robinson mine, and is an American gentle- 

 man of the very best type, offered to produce a vicious 

 mule which was warranted to eat up anyone that went near 

 him. After wiring off to my wife at Kimberley to come in 

 hot haste to Johannesburg, I engaged the Athletic Grounds 

 of the Wanderers' Club, which were to be lighted with elec- 

 tricity, and having fixed the evening, I left Bonamicci to fill 

 up the newspapers with advertisements of the most thrilling 

 kind, to get editorial puffs under' local intelligence,' to placard 



