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Circus and Nature in Late Georgian England
and other tricks, with a more sensational impact upon the perceived gap between
humankind and animals. The Learned Pig, the only really new admission to the
ranks of the sapient, enchanted the salons of a credulous London between 1784
and 1788 with his apparent ability to speak with the aid of letter cards, as well as
mind-reading and card tricks. 48 Writing in 1788, the year after Astley had shown
his own version, the children’s moralist Sarah Trimmer credited the act with real
influence in the gradual dethronement of humankind:
“I have,” said a lady who was present, “been for a long time accustomed to consider
animals as mere machines, actuated by the unerring hand of Providence, to do those
things which are necessary for the preservation of themselves and their offspring; but
the sight of the Learned Pig, which has lately been shown in London, has deranged these
ideas and I know not what to think.” 49
Even a trainer, writing in 1805, claimed to be amazed by the animal’s abilities.
One could, he said, eventually abandon the subtle cueing signals, “for the animal
is so sagacious, that he will appear to read your thoughts.” 50 The pig, hitherto a
byword for the bestial, touched a raw nerve in human–animal relations, sparking
concerns and controversy about training methods, and becoming a satirical
emblem for Romantics including Wordsworth and Burns.
Animal acts therefore sought to imply that the creatures had human-like
motivations and reasoning: in 1770, the Little Learned Military Horse behaved “as
if he understood” his instructions “word for word,” and by 1799 Astley had
developed the “LITTLE SPEAKING HORSE.” 51 Astley’s horse Billy was the
progenitor of the now standard circus “Liberty Act,” such a notion of freedom
having been, of course, a definitively human aspiration. The significance of
Astley’s “really clever” dancing horses was that dance – an extension of manners
– was seen as another crucially human attribute. 52 The Morning Herald in 1785
was not alone in saying that “The encrease of learned animals of the brute species,
as horses, dogs, pigs, &c. must touch the feelings of every humane heart, when it
is known that the tricks they perform are taught by the most excruciating torture.” 53
Trainers warned the public that results were to be obtained by encouragement only,
but it became known that Dancing Dogs at Astley’s were kept hungry, and stormed
a miniature castle on stage with such alacrity only because food was placed on the
other side. 54 The acts played upon, as well as contributed to, an emerging
bourgeois sensitivity towards the brute creation. 55 The restoration of a prelapsarian
harmony within the animal kingdom was a powerful subtext for animal acts
throughout the history of the circus.
Clothing became a basic tool of manipulation in these often anthropomorphic
spectacles. The rope-dancing monkey General Jackoo, miming his own little
55