The Billboard 1924-03-22: Vol 36 Iss 12 (1924-03-22)

> TTT TOTS be tagging along when a circus went exploring. Just as Columbus sailed forth to find a new avenue of trade for Spain, so had the tented organization cast out its feelers for new territory, new domain in which it could establish itself—and it had been successful. The country was along the route of a new railroad building into the Coos Bay District of Oregon, a land peopled from the sea, its inhabitants drifting there by schooner, steamer and open boat from the more populous districts of the Northwest, there to establish themselves, to build their homes and rear children—and to regard the world “back yonder” as some faraway, nebulous thing which they neither could see nor regard with any thought of communication other than that of the mere necessities of the carrying on of business and of life. A new generation came, untutored as regarded the world; it was as tho this were 1 foreign country fenced within the confines of America. Great mills were built, the machinery and saws and wherewithal being brought by way of the sea. Schools were raised—but they taught things by book, not by observation. Then the railroad came, and following almost upon the pilot engine the circus. N* SO many years ago I happened to with the excitement which the arrival of the great tented organization brought about. The crowds waiting beside bonfires which lined the tracks until the trains should roll in at three o’clock in the morning. Th2 murder trial, which adjourned that the jury—jen the man on trial for his life—might see this wonderful thing from “out there” which had foll#'wed the equally marelous railroad. The thr@gs of persons which siampeded to the circus grounds immediately the big top was erected, be1ieving that the “sarkus’ would begin as soon the tent was raised. The purchasers of grand-s@nd tickets who went blithely into the main te and perched upon ihe general admission seaffs, not knowing they were entitled to better agfommodations. That was a condition apart; thi§Z concerns itself with but one phase of psycholo the intense interest of the human animal in otijfr members of the animal kingdom, the curiosity§the longing to know what may exist in unfathong§ed brains. For it was not the performance itself which enthralled these people of a comparatively§ primitive existence. The glitter, the “gorgeousngss”, the spangles and splendor, which was little @ss than a wonderful fairy tale come true, was pressive, to say the least. The feats of the rffers, the graceful lilt of the “mixed numbers”, t music of the bands, the comicalities of the »wns—the spectators laughed or gawked as thejiease might be. But after all these were beings@fike themselves doing things which they themselvs could do had they been trained for it. But t#e thing of all things which held them,* which ame them, was the menagerie! N* NEED this little recital concern itself It was an opportunity to study the reactions of an ‘unsophisticated people toward animals and really learn just how much interest is engendered in the beasts which form the zoo of the ing circus. That stu@# brought some sursults—there were persons by the score not even yield to the lure of the band, YISA By Courtney Ryley Cooper The Billboard NAL (Written Especially for The Billboard) paying their admission to the circus, but preferring to remain in the menagerie instead of going into the big top to see the show. A woman, seventy years old, offered to pay the elephant keeper if he would but allow her to touch the trunk of the leader of the big herd of pachyderms. When he granted this request without payment and escorted her within the ropes that she might pat Old Mom she went away a new and proud being, announcing: “There! Now I can say something! I've touched an elephant!” Courtney Ryley Cooper And as I watched these simple folk, noting their delight and their intense interest, a number of things came to me—things which I had regarded but superficially before. me of them concerned the debt which the country at lars owes to the circus, the great part which the ous i. MARCH 22, 1924 tented amusements of America have played in the teaching of natural history by living examples, In this wise the circus has always been a pioneer in America. True, ‘it 1s not due to altruism purely—altho the circus man unde; his pose of being’ ever ready ‘to take the vagrant nickel is at heart a man proud of his ac. complishments and particularly proud of the t he is in the business of creating happiness and amusement, His chief joy he is able to present some new animal or aifferent species 3s when some And when he can show something which cannot be found in even the mendous trezoolog:cal gardens of New York le Philadelphia then he is happy indeed. It has been thus since the days when Barnum imported his first elephant, and for the purposes of advertising hitched it to a plow so that the persons aboard the trains which passed his farm near Pridgeport, Conn., might see in it a tremendous farm animal and thereby become more interested than if it were merely a strange beast That is the circus man’s tr'ck. Feing a born psycholog’st he knows that we all are in rdinate ly self-centered; that we care most about the things in which we ean find some relationship vith ourselves. We will stand in front of a monkey coge for hours not simoly because there ire monkeys within, but because they are doine ings which, to our minds, show a burlesque or i faint relationship, at least, with human actions We like to believe that anything that a human foes is the most wonderful thing in the world, ind that a beast which can imitate a human is tar tnore wonderful than one that cannot. For instance, that detested Ittle animal, the weasel, performs a remarkable feat every year When the ground is covered by grasses and shrubs in the summer hits coat is of a color to tate it. But when winter comes and the ceases to become a weasel and metamorphcses into an ermine, his body pure white, with the except'on of a black ip on the end of his tail. His nature-made lazzle painting is so skillfully done that it is elmost impossible to see him twenty feet away. Which, to the ordinary mind, is not so wonderful. It just happens. But suppose some one could teach a weasel to smoke a cigar just like a human being. Wouldn't that be simply marvelous? humans that the c'reus man has become the great educator of the United States as regards the various beasts which form the 11 . a IT is thru the relationship of animals and menagThru that system he has aroused interest in aniinals, taught their eries of the various shows characteristics, instilled more humane views toward them and given them to the ordinary mind as a part of education. As against the circus in fact, the work of zoos has been practically negligible. For every person who has come to know animals thru visits to a zoological garden twenty have gained that knowledge from the circus. And that is one of the reasons why the menagerie exists. Just suppose, for instance, that the circus never had carried a menagerie. More than half the persons of the United States would be .ent.rely ignorant of such beasts as the elephant MARI t) lio mu ro} in rt n tl \V he D il aut ‘ W be ( and tne res ilts ou Lec " in accord The N in @Xal de rful I do ne Natura much reus Out a colle elephar lay of 1 it is, t) researc those e€ ferent. Want te out wo age ma Prerods he'll t some n interest which | the pal in thei le wit History the mit its inf pellets, African for ins wonder extant. elephar it Was signed study z DEAD, lesires to do if That's thru it ple i ¢« learn a