The billboard (July-Dec 1899)

p 1} THE BILLBOARD irciisjj^ore.g l^%V*6T^!f <W ^vf ^1 *W ^f ^1 *W *rt *rt P T TRT?RTV t» accept position as gen- . *<*•"■•-'«■ ■•• * era! agent or contractor. lroad show preferred. Responsible managers Address. ROBERT FAGAN. Madison, lnd. 1 ftarlie Cory did himself proud on the Wal- e Show route book this year. It is accu- „ !e, comprehensive and yet terse. The pa- |ij J is the fines ever utilized for this purpose." 'i Id Burk and John Fagan are great kidders. rt after Pagan signed with the Sells-Fore- 'I igh Shows he sent Burk the following mes- j ;e: '.] Don't be afraid. I won't take your job ay. 1 have signed with Sells.* lurk immediately got back as follows: Wallace only employs union men, and is isfled to pay the union scale." Id be. t is rumored that the Walter L. Main jws will be materially enlarged for the son of 1900. Their business on the Pacific st last season was phenominal. 'eter Sells is deservedly popular among iw folks. No one has more friends both ong actors and agents. One never hears a fi% ni spoken against him. M. J. Kane is a quivering bundle of nerv- i energy. He lives - on excitement, and ,_ mlngly can subsist on it alone. He was ; ^red a very lucrative position with Al. G. Id's Greater Minstrels for the winter, but lid not get his release from the Robinson ■ aws in time to accept it. <ight more cars for Ringlinr Bros, next tr, so it is said. It would really seem that five-section show is not very far off at rate. I t K . P. Fagan is wintering at Madison, lnd. * .dison- is on- the map, even if it is out of tne "rid. ol. W. E. Franklin (Watseka Bill) has >n measured for specs. No one will believe it he needed them very badly. He was to see good country from a distance Dut as well as anybody this last season, vouis E. Cooke, general agent of the Bul- o Bill Shows, already has his printing tor rt year well under way. V. E. Franklin scored a great success dur- the past season as general agent of the it Wallace Shows. It was a great au- ! ice force he organized. He had sober men " 'oung men and full of ginger, and yet they re all thoroughly experienced, le not only had the men, but he had the :t of paper for them, and plenty of it. He |)t them in good hotels, studied their coni- t and convenience, and as a result had m in race-horse condition at all times, 'heir work shows the wisdom of his course, is probably unparalleled in America, ilay Lambert has been re-engaged for next ;.son with Ringling Bros." World's Greatest ibws. lalph W. Feckham, excursion agent of jigling Bros.' World's Greatest Shows, will iter in Cincinnati. i*he Sells-Forepaugh show had a wonderful ison—Use most profitable in all its long reer. £ajor G. W. Lillie (Pawnee Bill), in corn- ay with his wife and O. J. Krause. his iiager, is ranching it at Pawnee, Oklahoma rritory. low Would You Like To Be A Circus Ticket Seller. Put down your money." 'he reauest, perhaps almost a command, [enunciated in sharp, clear tones, yet withal ite and suave. Around an open window in ■. end of a circus ticket wagon, surges a iwd that packs itself, and grinds closer S still more closely as its human ractors !Ss nearer to the goal. It is such a crowd can be found only on a circus lot half an ir before the show is to begin. No one has never seen rush work at a circus ket wagon in a good circus town knows iat that crowd means. % is a mass of writhing, moving, twisting 'inanity—a thousand pairs of hands wltn ey in them, held up in the air, and rat- S down upon the brass sill of the window |th a continual patter like a shower of haij. nding inside, working like an automaton, th a deftness and skill that are surpassing } belief, stands the treasurer. He must be rt enough to unload all those hands, deal ': tills number or that or whole tickets and i many children's tickets in the twinkling an eye; snap down the change for what- :r coin or bill may be presented, and at the ne time be responsible to his employer and the natrons for his own absolute accuracy. .ere is never any money over in a ticket |!gon: there is never a shortage; a treas- !bt must be a machine that never slips a lav but that will work perfectly, no matter Iw high the speed or how severe the strain. Jtfany years daily practice makes a man Irfect. especially if that man :be physically anted to the work, and has a temperature "fit will stand it With a bunch of whole Ikets and half tickets in either hand, and lea ol silver cols upon the board in front of him, the best treasurers will -sell from 8,000 to 9,000 circus tickets and make the eorrect change every time in a space of forty min- utes. There is not one individual in any given thousand who could count that many tickets with absolute accuracy in the same length of time, to say nothing of the untold mathematical calculations that must pass like lightning through his brain, when a different request come? from - each individual with whom he deals, for scarcely two persons in succession ask for the same number of tickets when they reach the window. "Seven wholes, nine halves, a $20 gold coin —all -these drop at the same instant on tne brass board, and in less time than any one can repeat the order the tickets are dealt out, a rattle of coin follows from somewhere, and the man's hand -that has that very second dropped the $20 coin closes upon a pile of tickets and silver change that must in every Instance be right. Mistakes possibly happen in very rare instances, but if a man permitted daily mistakes to happen he could not re- main with the show. He simply must not make tbem and he never does." The other day, wicn asked to tell some of the things that happen in a ticket wagon. "As to adventures, if you mean attempted robberies, they are very rare nowadays. The circus never carries funds to any amount, but buys Njw York drafts in local banks for its cash. Then, its wagon is armed and well guarded, so that any attempt would prove dangerous. In British Columbia, this year, a fool, "who was either drunk or crazy, talked in front of the window, just after the rush was over, and in an instant I was looking down the gleaming barrel of a revolver that looked as if it would carry a 13-inch shell. Colonel J. O. Harrison was just behind the man at the instant he raised the gun. He was carrying a small sack of silver In his hand, and quicker than a flash landed it upon the top of Mr. Gunman's cranium. I never saw money used as a weapon before, but it put that tough gentleman to sleep so speedily that he didn't know- what hit him. His finger was on the trigger, - however, and that big hole there in the other end of the wagon, al- most in a line with my head, shows how close a call I .had. What happened to the hard man? Well, to use a circus expression, he was 'trimmed up.' Ask any canvasmau what that means."—Los Angeles Evening Ex- press. E. M. Burk. E.M.BURK. Railroad Contractor for The Great Wallace Shows. Mr. Warran S. Patrick, the treasurer of Wal- ter S. Main's shows, said: "Oh, yes, we have all sorts of things to bother us in here, you know, for the United Order of Brotherhood is as broad in scope as the world is large. A - man with a small boy wants one and-a half tickets, bands up a $2 bill, gets his order and $1 25 change in a fraction of a second, and it's too Quick for him. He wants to tane more time and talk it over with you. I some- times find much amusement in carrying on a conversation with some old farmer who thinks it a good time to talk. I thrust his order and his change in his hand and the crowd takes care of him. He gets turned around and around like a friction wheel be- tween pulleys, and still talking I see him wormed or revolved completely out of the crowd before he knows how it happened. "If I make an error in an order or change and slap the money down I know it instantly. It is intuitive. My mental calculation as to the number of quarters—I figure everything in quarters—is invariably right, but now and then my fingers, after a severe strain, may drop one or two, too many or too little. If too many the patron's hand never reaches the : pile before I've got my error out of it. If", too few coins have been laid, the other one or two to correct the amount will land on the back of his hand nine times out of ten before his fingers have closed over it. "It sometimes happens that a man will pick up his tickets and walk away without his .change. This we call 'walkaway.' Odd. isn't it? but you can see how impossible it would be for me to even glance at the many thou- sand faces that pass before my hands in forty minutes. It Never Happened. By "Punch" Wheeler. 'During the high water at Evansvllle the Ohio was up to the third floor of the Amer- ican House on the levee. Two acrobats had room 13. and. becoming alarmed, one of them grabbed a shutter, and. throwing it into the raging river, floated off down stream, while his brother accompanied him on the piano. The Dawson City bill poster writes, that while there is money all around him there is nothing he can eat, so a friend sent him a Palmer House bill of fare, as he felt sorry for hinJ\ A man while eating will betray his calling. By close observance a waiter friend of mine can tell you any man's occupation. If a gentleman le seen eating gravy with his knife and wiping ft^n the table cloth, he is almost certain to be\a plasterer. Should you ob- serve a foxy-ey\d man palm a plate of hash you can rely on him being a magician. And when a stack of buckwheat cakes are placed before a well-dressed party, should he be seen to deal himself one from the bottom, he is a gambler without a doubt. If a particularly neat looking man should drop in and order ham and eggs, and taking up the ham, feel- ing its texture, and looking at it through the light, the probability Is he is a clothing mer- chant. However, one man fooled the waiter. After eating a largo slice of watermelon he carefully tied up thertnd in the latest daily paper and placed it in bis hip pocket. The waiter guessed bim a miser, but no, he said he was an actor, and had his own flat for the summer, and was only stocking up the larder. Edward M. Burk. whese portrait adorns this page, essayed the railroad contracting of the Great Wallace Shows during 1899. and — made good. We do not know of any higher tribute to pay him. If we did we would cei- tainly tender it right here and now. His ex- perience has been wide • and varied. He achieved an enviable reputation as local con- tractor ahead of Ringling Bros. World's Greatest Shows prior to casting his fortunes with the Wallace Shows, and drew the high- est salary ever paid a contracting agent. Prior to that he was general agent of the Reynold Shows. He has also been in the employ of the Bar- num Show, and for years was a partner with his brouhCT in the conduct of Burk's Colossal Shows. He is a man of few words, and his habitual reticence, coupled witth' a backward manner an<? retiring disposition, have oper- ated against him and kept his great ability from being accorded the recognition and fame which is his due. For all that, tie is highly esteemed among a large circle of Intimate friends, many of whom are bill posters. For these latter, Mr. Burk entertains an especially kindly feeling. His bias and predilection in this respect has occasioned much comment at divers times and places. His lack of self-esteem Is his one great fail- ing. So low is bis estimate of his own ability and so lightly does he esteem his worth that it is said Mr. Wallace had to fight him for days before he succeeded in forcing a raise of salary upon him. Mr. Burk is already well up in the world, and if he ever succeeds in conauering his shyness and convincing people that he; is not tongue lied, there is no heighth that he may not aspire to. Exhorbitant Rates. One of the most senseless agreements ever entered into by railroad managers is one which exists in Texas. The agreement, Dy law, is binding on all roads in Texas. It is in the matter of rates demanded from the theatrical companies. The almost prohibitory rates are fifteen full fares for the first fifteen people: 2 cents per mile per capita for all people over that number, and 15 cents per mile for baggage car. Although you may not have a pound of excess baggage in it you have to pay mikage on the car. a rule that prevails nowhere in the United States except- ing in Texas. Mr. Al. G. Fields, the noted theatrical man- ager, and the proprietor of the Al. G. Fields Minstrels, says in this- connection: "I have two cars. I applied to a railroad in Texas to make a movement extending something over 200 miles on their road, ex- plaining that I had forty people. The geneial passenger agent informed roe that under the present agreement he would have to charge me 15 cents per mile for my baggage car, in addition to full fare for fifteen people, and 2 cents per mile per capita for all over that number. I explained to him that we did not have a round of excess baggage, that I was furnishing equipment for the railroad for their own benefit, that if I had to use one of their baggage cars they would have to pro- vide men to load it. and would possibly have to dead-head that car to the point at which 1 began my route over their road. Although the passenger agent saw the force of the ar- gument, he was forced by the laws of the State to live up to the agreement. "No large company can carry scenic ef- fects, but must have its own baggage car. To sihow the difference in theatrical rates in Texas and elsewhere, I will say that all the railroads in the southern passenger as- sociation exact H4 cents per mile per capita for all companies of twenty-five or more and carry their baggage car free. If you have thirty-eight or more people you pay 1% cents a mile per capita for your people, they tiansport your sleeping car and baggage car free of mileage. "Now, take the same movement In Texas. You will pay 15 cents per mile on your bag- gage oar, fifteen full fares and 2 cents a mile for all people over the number of flt- teen. In the State of Texas there are Hous- ton, Galveston-, San Antonio, Austin, Fort Worth and Dallas—six cities—a tremendous jump to get in and still a greater one to get out. With nearly double the railroad fares of other sections, is K any wonder that large -companies refuse to go-to-Texas?" Mr. Field also stated that with the present rates prevailing, this would be his last tour of the State. Can Dot the railroads see that they are keeping the theatre-going people of Texas from seeing the same grade of attrac- tions that the other sections of the South get, and that they are "cutting off their nose to spite their face?"—that with the prevailing rate they are a hindrance to the growth and expansion of the Lone Star State, Instead of being the greatest factor Id its development? If they do not see these things. It Is high time that they were pointed nut to them. All of the papers in the State should rise up In righteous Indignation against this drawback to the cultivation and civilization of the larg- est State In the Union. The law that pre- vents the general passenger agents making a rate applicable to the business should be abolished. Railroad commissions or the leg- islature should not be allowed to dictate to the officers of the roads. During the past year there were 311.715 emigrants landed In the United States. Of thiB number only 1.272 went to Texas. Is this not proof positive that something Is wrong ? Give the railroad of- ficers free rein. Let them bustle for the busi- ness, the same as those In other parts of the country have to do. Encourage anything that will bring people to the State, and a differ- ent state of affairs would very soon tie M** km L. " ." cij- W. H. HARRIS. Proprietor and Manager of the Great Nickle Plate Shows. !■',