AS TOLD TO ISAAC F. MARCOSSON ILLUSTRATED NEW YORK MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 1910 Copyright, 1909, by THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY Copyright, 1910, by MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY New York Published March, 1910 TO THE CHILDREN WHO LOVE THE CLOWNS...

This story of Jules Turnour interests me more than I can say. I have known him for more than twenty years; have seen him at very close range in all the shifting movement of a great circus organization, and I have yet to find a man with a cleaner, higher aim. Mr. Marcosson, I think, has admirably brought out the contrast between his whitened and motley face and his patient, serious purpose to make his life helpful. The world has been made better by the presence and work of Jules, and I am glad th

When the article on which this little book is based appeared in the Saturday Evening Post we were amazed at the response it evoked. It simply proved that all the world loves a clown. In most of the comment and communication, however, there was a question as to the authenticity of the subject. I beg to say that Jules is a real personage and still the nimble producer of many laughs. It was while writing a series of articles on an entirely different phase of the circus that I first met Jules. I hea

I SUPPOSE it was destiny that I should be a clown because I was born in a circus wagon. It happened in this way. My mother had been a première dancer on the French and English stage and had appeared in many of the great Covent Garden and Drury Lane Christmas pantomimes, but she grew stout, which is always fatal to that kind of dancing. She did not want to leave my father, who was also a dancer and general acrobat, so they invested their savings in a small circus. In those days—it was more than f

I FOUND that I could still do some acrobatic tricks like simple flip-flaps. You can never possibly realize the feeling of consolation that came to me when I landed on my feet after the first experimental turn, for, with that landing, I realized that I still had a means of earning a livelihood. It was like a man who suddenly found an arm useful that had been considered helpless. I had been a good balancer in my contortion days, and this was also an asset. So I joined a troupe known as “Jackley’s

D URING all these years that I had spent clowning in various lands, that peculiarly American institution, the tented circus, had been rapidly developing. The first circus to show under a “canvas top” had unfolded its wonders in New England as far back as 1826. Previous to that time the circuses had showed in frame buildings, theaters, or in hotel yards behind canvas walls under the sky. The first shows had no menageries. When the showmen did begin to acquire animals from the sea captains who bro

T HAT was the great clown era in America. Clowning reached a golden age which passed away, never to return again. You may not think so, but we clowns have as much pride in our profession as the most finished Shakespearian actor has in his. It thrills me now to think of the giants of those days, at whose feet I worshiped, and from whose art I drew inspiration. They were all white-faced clowns, but the drollest fun-makers the world ever saw. The greatest clown America ever saw was Dan Rice. His ve

I HAVE rambled along, talking about my profession and the things that have happened in it, until now I realize that I have not touched upon some events which meant a good deal to me personally. A clown, despite the general impression, is a real human being. He has emotions like any other mortal, and sometimes they are deeper and truer than in those who pretend to piety and keep a straight face. Although we are nomads, we people of the circus have hearts. It was shortly after I came to America th

M ANY people think that because the clown wears a grotesque garb and indulges in silly antics, that he is a buffoon all the time. They are very much mistaken. Like humorists, we take our profession very seriously, for it has traditions of real greatness. I never quite understood this so much until I had an experience in Boston. We usually stay there a week, and this gives us a chance to get around and see the city. One hot June afternoon I was taking a street-car ride out towards the suburbs. It

F OR thousands of years man has searched for the Fountain of Youth, and it has always eluded him. Yet I am foolish enough to think that I have discovered it. The secret lies in being a clown. We are not only the oldest people of the circus in tradition, but also in years. There is that about our work which keeps us eternally young in spirit. Sometimes when the journey has been long and the day hot and the dust thick, I get a little weary, for I am moving on towards sixty. But as soon as I hear t