2 mins
FROM THE STRAD
Violinist Archie Easton presents some ‘reminiscences of John Frederick Lott’ (1804–70), including his brief spell as an elephant trainer for a circus
120 YEARS AGO
From the ARCHIVE
JUNE 1904VOL.15 NO.170
Jack Lott was taught violin making by his father. He was allowed one day in the week to work for himself, which he used to do and to a good purpose often, as the following will show. He made two violins and thought he would try and sell them. He showed them to his father and told him he was going to take them to a sale, and see what he could get for them. His father was indignant, and told him he was doing a foolish thing, and would not get anything for such badly made fiddles! However, Jack, never daunted, put his fiddles into two old cases, and took them to the sale room.
After two or three days, to his great surprise he was told that they had fetched £30 each. When he was asked how he would take the money, in notes or in gold, he said he preferred gold! He filled both his trouser pockets, and went home to tell his father of his good fortune.
When he emptied his pockets on to the bench, and his father saw the sixty sovereigns, he asked Jack whom he had been robbing, but Jack explained that the two dirty old fiddles he had made had fetched the amount on the bench.
After working with his father, Jack thought he would like to travel, and meeting with a travelling circus manager, who was wanting a keeper for one of his elephants, offered himself for that post. Not having had any previous experience with elephants, Jack thought he would like to get used to the animal before its present keeper left, so he asked if he might be allowed to make up a bed the other side of the keeper, and sleep a night or two, so that the elephant might get used to him. The animal, evidently, knew there was a stranger the other side of its keeper, and waited for an opportunity to disturb Jack from his sleep, which it successfully did by quietly putting its trunk over its keeper’s bed and lifting Jack and his bed up in the air! Jack, however, stuck to his bed night after night, until the elephant became quite used to him, and willing to accept him as its future keeper.
He was taking a very large elephant to America. It was a ponderous animal, and the captain and crew declared it was the cause of their not being able to get along quickly, and delayed them for days. They got so exasperated that they threatened to throw the elephant overboard. Jack, with his ever ready wit, told them to do so, knowing full well that it was more than all the hands on board could do. At all events, when Jack wanted to return to England, the captain had his revenge, for he positively refused under any conditions to bring him home if he wished to bring the elephant with him.
TARISIO