The Billboard 1913-03-22: Vol 25 Iss 12 (1913-03-22)

~ i S ‘ 7. oe ewe Ry Se —_ 34 he Biltboard MARCH 22, 1913, VASES \ \ ( WoRL NS GRI a TTT Kite Time, Marble Time, Circus Time By Harry Earl HHT: I remember reading some “moons” ago, the following: “First comes kite-time; then marbles, then stilts; then baseball, and then —the circus!” The fellow who wrote the above had the rotation about right, and if he is in the field of “grinding out copy” this season, is due to think out new ideas for his press notices. The big shows are all ready for the whistle to blow—and the smaller ones as well. I miss a lot of good things, as thru this life I go. It may be that I’m lazy, OR, maybe, I’m slow. But in my youth a habit I formed, that’s with me still—lI’ve never missed a circus, by gum; I never will. CIRCUS DAY! If you are a small boy there is no need to describe the clutch of joy, the tickling tug at the swinging heart-strings that answers the ring of those magic words. Circus day, circus days, the circus season of old old old old old old Same Same Same Same Same Same Same Same story, farewell tour, show for rich and poor. Sawdust, same old mud, wild-man sweating blood. handshakes, now and then. horses, dapple grays, old verdict, “highest praise.”’ old ad of something new. One can never tell what the man “on the desk” will do with the circus press agent’s copy The New York Telegraph once said: “The ‘feature’ for the circus is quite as much ‘the thing’ as the play is fcr the drama. There, annually, must be something new for the manager to advertise and for the people to see.” Aaron Turner, the father of the American circus, introduced the leather rhinoceros. Two persons mounted on an elephant, with Raymond and Waring pounding a bass drum and 1913—al! near by—in fact, right on top of us. If you are one of the ‘boys grown tall,’ you'll facea sympathetic answer, ring-throb, particularly if there is a youngster or two—or, mayhap, three —to inherit the touch of enchantment you felt in the old days, when you were a boy and it was circus day. And any one who doesn’t respond to one or the other of these calls, lacks something to make a_redblooded American citizen. For the circus is the most characteristic of American entertainments—of the big, hearty, daring, blood-curdling, hairraising type that jogs the slow pulse of civilization comfort with a sudden rush of heroic ideas and reckless ambition. And, by the way, have you ever noticed how many fond fathers and mothers and aunts and uncles it takes properly to escort one small boy to the circus? It’s all for Johnny—oh, of course! Such a pity the little fellow should miss it, and I—we—you —or they just thought—of course, we don’t care anything about it—just on Johnny’s account, you know. And so forth, and so on. There are many people who maintain all circuses are the same—and one of these fellows, connected with a little newspaper in a small town, had the following to say: (in lieu of the copy I had furnisht, telling how big and different the show was which I represented) we are going to have another circus, and, without doubt, it will bring to our town: old old old old old old old old old old old old old old old old old old ol old old old Same Same Same Same Same Same Same Same Same Same Same Same Some Seme Same Same Same Some Same Same Some Same camel, same old snake, charmer, same old fake. elefant, same old trunk, peanuts, same old junk, brass band, same old noise. nonsense, same old joys. story, “all alike,” hustle out the pike. calliope, do, ra, me, monkey and chimpanzee. thin man, fat girl, too, flea-bit kangaroo. fourteen-legged cow, berker tel'ing how. little. stingy seat, trouble "bout your feet. backache, same old frown, wish you were downtown thrilling chariot race, clown with painted face hippo. biggest ever, cry—now or never. Sea, den, Later the kings rode in the parades in the open dens surrounded by the fiends of the jungles. And again, the woman! She of the skirts took to lionizing in the ironbound den. Crocket rode in the open air with a free lion at his feet, with the Great European of “the Flatfoots,” and Sam Sharpley, the minstrel, wrote thereof: “Lions loose on the streets and loose lying on the bills.” “General” Welch made money out of a giraffe until the delicate creature “‘got it in the neck” and died of elongated bronchitis. The astute Lewis B. Lent caught the public with the hippopotamus, which he exhibited in connection with the Tippozoonomadom, to immense receipts proportionate to the manager's own great bulk. Mr. Lent was a good man and weighed 400 pounds. The same manager “pre sented” previous to Charles Frohman the cynocephalus, circus for big monk on horseback. W. W. Cole built on giants and balloon weddings. P. T. Barnum and Adam Forepaugh cornered the populace and the elefant market until each had a “quarter of a hundred” and kept Herds of performing elef became prevalent. P. T. Barnum, Bailey & Hutchinson and Adam Forepaugh fought over imaginary white elefants until they were black in the face—both the managers and the elefants. A cloth and paint-built whale ants got along swimmingly for a while. The Glasticutus and the Damfino could not have drawn better. William C. Coup. exploited Nellie, the leaping horse, with the Equescuriculum. Adam Forepaugh, Jr.’s Blondin h: “ walked a rope, and so did Colonel Dan Rice’s elefant. P. Barnum made much of dwarfs, beginning with General Tom A HAPPY YEARLY EVENT—THE CIRCUS PARADE beating the cymbals in parade, wild in primitive times; team of four set the people later they exploited a elepfants drawing a band chariot. Seth FP. Howe showed ten elefants in line in the street. At another period he presented the first golden chariot—20 cream-colored horses with white manes and tails drawing the musicians— and the audience. Next “forty horses, four abreast, driven by one man.” said James M. Nixon went him better by altering the statement to “one woman.” Women always were great at the reins. It was Howe who transported Colonel Dan Rice over the road in a special carriage to enter town throwing away money right and left. Colonel Dan Rice was featured all through his career. He pulled against horses on the show grounds, sang himself into jail, received the largest salary ever paid a clown, and was made famous by Excelsior, the trained milkwhite equine and “the one-horse show,’ nominating himself for President of the United States organized a military force to put down the rebellion. when he could have talked the Southern confederacy to death with ease. Nixon and Kemp scared horses with the calliope or steam piano. Dan Stone ran to Indiana for many years, and even trailed to Europe to follow the red man on his track. Levi J. North was responsible for the free outside high rope ascension. Van Amburgh, Herr Driesbach and Professor Longworthy out-Danileled the prophet in the lions’ and featured Thumb and running on to Minnie Warren and Commodore Nutt down to the admirable Admiral Dot. The equestriennes, Mollie Brown and Loulse Rentz, who somersaulted on horseback, were foremost features with Montgomery Queen and Adam Forepaugh. John B. Doris, thinking two heads better than one, engaged Millie Christine, the double-headed lady, P. T. Barnum made things variegated with the greatest tatooed man ever seen. Adam Forepaugh boomed George Loyal, the “Man Fired from the Cannon,” for all there was in it, with a section of artillery tin parade. Lulu—that was—was propelled from the catapult across William C. Coup’s arena without breaking his neck, to the great disappointment of the patrons. Adam Forepaugh once had an outfit road all drawn by dappled-gray horses. Yankee Robinson led his procession under 4 bell-crowned hat and a spike-tailed coat of blue with brass buttons. James F. Cooke, to on the advertise his winter cir cus in Long Island. rode and drove from town to town with six horses in hand. + Cemeteries were abandoned to see the Adam Forepaugh Show’s Oriental pageant, “Lalla Rookh Departing from Dethi.” with Loulse Montague as the $10,000 beauty. A party in Chicago over-anxious In eazing at the “lovellest lady in the land,” fell out of a window and was killed. P. T. Parnum, Pailey & Hutchinson's Ethnological Congregation of humans and inhumans (Continued om page 138.)