Museum of Living Curiosities
What was presented under this name in Jamaica in 1872 seems to have been a very pale imitation of the 'freak show' that P. T. Barnum put on under the same name alongside his 'Greatest Show on Earth'.
Daily Gleaner, March 10, 1872
The Nassau Herald reports that a Museum of living curiosities was on exhibition at that place. Among the attractions were the wonderful Leopard Child, or Spotted Boy, and his companion, a huge Boa Constrictor; also the Happy Family, consisting of various species of animals, living together in perfect harmony, A Mammoth Moving Panorama of 288 highly colored and interesting scenes, truthfully representing the Old Egyptian Catacombs, Holy Land, Palestine and Life of Christ. The Great Circassian Wizard Fire King, gave a highly entertaining and moral exhibition, free to visitors of the Museum, consisting of Legerdemain, Chinese Juggling, Light and Heavy Balancing, and Plate Spinning, concluding with the Laughable and Sidesplitting Play of Peter Montz and Family, Ventriloquism, &c.
These Exhibitors arrived in Kingston on Thursday last, and intend to give exhibitions, at No. 20, King Street, commencing from today.
[A moving panorama consisted of contiguous views of passing scenery, as if seen from a boat or a train window. Installed on immense spools, they were scrolled past the audience behind a cut-out drop-scene or proscenium which hid the mechanism from public view. The moving panorama almost always had a narrator, styled as its "Delineator" or "Professor", who described the scenes as they passed and added to the drama of the events depicted. In the mid-nineteenth century, the moving panorama was among the most popular forms of entertainment in the world, with hundreds of panoramas constantly on tour in the United Kingdom, the United States, and many European countries. Moving panoramas were often seen in melodramatic plays. It became a new visual element to theatre and helped incorporate a more realistic quality. Not only was it a special effect on stage, but it also served as an ancestor and platform to early cinema. from Wikipedia.]
Daily Gleaner, March 20, 1872
The Museum of Messrs. King and Hoberg, at 20, King Street (late G. Arnaboldi's) was opened yesterday, at 2 p.m., and was visited by a number of spectators. The Exhibition consisted of a variety of entertaining objects, the principal of which is a spotted or Leopard Child, and his companion a Boa Constrictor. As to the peculiarity of "MONGO PARK" (so he is named after the celebrated African Traveller), we gather the following narrative from an introductory address of the exhibitor :—
"This astonishing specimen of humanity, a connecting link of the brute creation, was captured, with his strange companion, in the wilds of Africa, by an exploring party in the service of Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria, in the Spring of 1865, and brought to London, and exhibited at the Zoological Gardens. and in the short space of ten months they were visited by one million five hundred thousand curious sight seers. At a special medical examination in the city of Paris gentlemen of the highest educational standing of London, Glasgow, Vienna, St. Petersburg, and of the French Capital, failed to account for this moat wonderful freak of nature and mysteriously constituted mortal. This leopard child is supposed to be about nine years of age, and is entirely covered by regularly formed white and black spots similar to the Leopard. The white spots are as clear as the purest Caucasian skin, whilst the black is of that jetty hue of the Congo African. His companion, a huge Boa Constrictor, is not a poisonous reptile, but is of that ferocious species, who destroy their victims by strangltng and crushing them to death. This huge monster seems perfectly delighted with the caresses and familiarities of the Leopard Boy, permitting him, at any and all times, to handle him with the greatest freedom - the two seemingly appear to be inseparable companions, even to sharing their beds. Their attachment is so mutually strong that occasionally it is even very difficult to separate them, each showing the affection of a mother and child."
There is attached to the Museum a Diorama, giving views both Historical and Scenic. But there is along with all this a fire-eater, a God of Fire, Professor LeGrand, a Circassian wonder, whom it is impossible to convey an idea of with pen and paper. He dines with fire, swallows swords, produces flaming clouds, from okum, out of his mouth and in other ways entertains in broad daylight, but at the same time is candid enough to say that it's all a deception.
We recommend the Proprietors of the Exhibition to rearrange the prices and time of visits, so that heads of families with their little ones may be enabled to visit the Museum together.
[The story of the origins of the 'Leopard Boy' is decidedly suspect ! He was, presumably, an African or African-American child suffering from vitiligo, which was turning his skin white in patches. Since Jamaicans were familiar with this condition they were probably less impressed than working-class Whites in the USA and the UK who were the usual audiences of Barnum's shows, which included similar 'Spotted Children'.]
The Museum of Living Curiosities seems to have stayed in Kingston until the end of March, its operators having taken the advice to reduce the prices of admission. There do not seem to be any further comments on the show.
