This cutting from the weekly illustrated newspaper The Illustrated London News, published on 13th January 1883, records some of the acts on offer in the Christmas entertainment that opened in December 1882 at Hengler's Circus in London's Argyll Street, and some of the audience members. The acts included the equestrian Felix Cariot, who finished his act by summoning pigeons. He is seen in the centre, his initials on the caparison of the horse, ringing a bell with his right hand while the pigeons flock to a T-bar held in his left hand. Below him, the clown Comical Cattle is shown as 'Cariot's imitator', hopelessly attempting to attract a goose to a rake he holds in his right hand. Other acts illustrated include Mlle. Elvira Guerra and her horse Campiador, Robbin Raffin's pig who jumped gates, and Nellie Boswell on horseback, shown here jumping through a hoop and about to land on her horse. The circus acts were followed by the pantomime Bold Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest featuring a harlequinade with Mr. Le Quips as Clown, M. Raffin as Pantaloon, Comical Cattle as Harlequin and Nellie Boswell as Columbine. Although Mlle. Guerra is depicted with Campiador, The Times review of Hengler's Circus, 27 December 1882, remarked on: 'the terpsichorean powers of the pretty horse Sylvan, admirably controlled by Mlle Elvira Guerra.'

Following his father as a circus performer and equestrian, Frederick Charles Hengler, always known as Charles Hengler (1820-1887), operated tenting circus from 1846 until 1857 when he opened his first permanent circus building in Liverpool in 1857, followed by others in Glasgow and Dublin in 1863; Hull, 1864; Birmingham and Bristol, 1886, and London in 1871.