W. C. THOMPSON NEW YORK NEW AMSTERDAM BOOK COMPANY 1905 Copyright, 1903, By W. C. Thompson Copyright, 1905, By New Amsterdam Book Company On the Road With a Circus....

The faithful recording of daily life with one of the “big shows,” wandering with it under all vicissitudes, fortunate or adverse, is the errand on which this book is sent. You and I will travel from the distraction and tumult of the summer season to the congenial quiet of winter quarters, and survey operations from the hour when new and unwonted scenes and sounds startle city quiet or country seat retirement until the stealthy breaking of the white encampment and the departure from town. We will

Through the gloom of night and the dusk of early morning the heavy circus train labors on its journey to transient destination. The distance diminishes slowly. Sometimes the line of cars is shunted to one side and stands patient and inert while expresses clatter by; again, its dragging weight defies the straining efforts of the engine, and it is left in solitary helplessness while the iron horse scurries off for aid; often the cars are rattled together with body-racking violence. Farmers in the

The selection of the place of exhibition is a duty which requires careful study and practical observation and involves a variety of considerations. Ten acres is the smallest piece of ground on which our circus can spread itself, and an unoccupied site of this size which has the requisite advantages is not always easy to find in these days of rapid-growing communities. A plot which had all the conditions demanded the year before may be the foundation of many houses when the show arrives on its ne

Breakfast over, active preparations are on for the parade. Well-fed horses and ponies in shining harness and waving plumes take their places before glittering vehicles; the sound of music is heard from bands perched hazardously high; clowns, charioteers, jockeys, Roman riders join the line; camels and elephants, some bearing a weight of feminine beauty in Oriental costume, make appearance, and a picturesque cavalcade nearly a mile long is in motion. One of the managers leads the line down to tow

Order has come out of the confusion at the lot when the parade returns. All is in readiness for the performances, seats and stands and rings and trapezes in place, and every man at his post. The cages are dragged from the parade to the menagerie tent, the horses led to their canvas stables, and elephants push the red and gilt vehicles into place. Down drops the sidewall, ropes are set, and the preparation is complete. Stolid yokels fill the enclosure in front. Two men are proclaiming with fluenc

I have always regarded the two men who sell tickets with a feeling of profound awe and solemn wonder. There is something almost uncanny about their daily exhibition. Their flying hands put to shame the clutching display of the octopus. No quicker-brained, more resolute or more peculiarly gifted men are with the show. They face, undaunted and calm, twice a day, a scene of confusion, disorder and clamoring demand which would put to his heels one not fitted perfectly by nature and experience for th

Into the menagerie tent, with its great variety of animals caged and unconfined, streams the open-mouthed human parade, stopping to comment and observe on its way to the “big top.” The lions and tigers pace up and down their cages with hungry eyes that gleam in green and gold. They stare steadily through the iron bars but take no heed of the pigmy humans who stare back. There is something in those shining eyes that tells of thoughts far from the circus, perhaps of a jungle in far-off Asia. The i

The art of seating the audience in the big tent plays a prominent part in the receipts of the day. “Fill the highest rows first,” is the instruction forced upon each usher, and censure or dismissal is the penalty of disobedience. By skilful and systematic arrangement of the crowds, it is possible to utilize every inch of seating space in the vast enclosure. Indifferent or careless performance of the duty leaves the tent, to the casual observer, packed to completion, but in reality here and there

Active preparations for the departure from town begin with the setting of the sun. When the naphtha torches spread their fluttering glow and when the men in the ticket wagon lift up its end and are ready for the evening sale, then canvasman, driver and porter swarm from the comfort of hay couch or from idling group, and are ready for the night’s work. Team horses feel again the weight of harness, and the march to the railroad yards is on. Horse, cook, wardrobe, blacksmith, barber and the other t

To the circus organization with honest purpose the problem of dealing with the horde of “guns,” “dips,” “grafters” and others of their criminal ilk, who would fain be its daily companion, is perplexing and formidable. Next season the duty of protecting the person and pocket of our patrons will be a duty entrusted to new hands. Frank Smoot, for many years the circus detective, is resting a long sleep in an Illinois graveyard. A hemorrhage took his life as the circus was folding itself away for th

When the circus bill posters swarmed over the farm a month ago and garnished my stable with products of their pot and brush, a shadow of sadness and melancholy oppressed me. Curiosity urged me to approach, but a sense of mortification over my ignominious fate bade me restrain myself. I kept in seclusion under a distant apple-tree and hoped to escape detection. However, I was doomed to disappointment, for soon I observed my owner, whom I detest, coming with halter and whip. Then I knew that he ha

Few people who watch the circus parade as it comes down the street and who, almost invariably, cry, “Strike up the band!” “Why don’t you play!” “Let her go!” etc., have ever given a thought to the amount of work that falls to the circus musician, and the experience, care and patience it requires to organize and successfully conduct this nowadays necessary adjunct to the big tent enterprises. The earlier circus bands were far from being the complete affairs of to-day, and perhaps nothing gives a

“Jumbo was the biggest elephant ever in this country, and few are in the secret that the tremendous success of the animal’s tour was an accident of fortune,” observed our elephant man. “He was an African animal and very stupid, but always good-natured. An agent of the big American circus heard that he was the tallest pachyderm in captivity and that London was anxious to sell him. The man closed the sale for two thousand pounds with no conception of the money-making prize he was securing. The bea

The brisk and bustling person who predominates in the stir and activity, hurry and excitement at the main entrance, is the general manager. Nothing seems to escape his watchful eve and alert ear. He answers questions innumerable and all-embracing, settles all disputes as to admission, conveys advice, makes suggestions, gives orders, sends lieutenants all over the lot with instructions, sees to it that the crowd gets in safely but without delay, watches ticket-seller and ticket-taker, and is in g

OFFICIAL ROUTE CIRCUS [ Sample Itinerary ] Home Sweet Home 1,015 miles via I. C., B. & O., S. & W., and B. & O. R. R. Summary: Number of miles travelled, 11,569. Number of States and Provinces visited, 26. Number of towns visited, 167. TRANSFERRING FROM WATER TO RAIL. The conquest of the Old World by the Barnum & Bailey circus will live forever in the stirring history of tented organizations. It made the enterprise an object of international interest. There is now

“The size of the tent was rather staggering at first, as the greatest length of the oval is nearly two hundred feet, and standing at one end it is impossible to distinguish with the naked eye the features of those on the crowded seats at the other end.” I quote the foregoing paragraph, taken from a newspaper of 1877, as illustrating by comparison the physical magnitude of the circus of to-day. Our “big tent” could stow away in its capacious depths half a dozen of the canvas arenas of twenty-five

The wily press agent’s method of gaining publicity for his show varies with the size and moral disposition of the cities in which he finds himself. In executing his publicity-provoking designs in populous centres there is in him no serious purpose to avoid an arrest. In the smaller cities he must needs exercise his ingenuity to prevent the action of the law. The notion that showmen are moral delinquents is firmly settled in rural communities, especially in the East, and if in the excess of his e