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About Menageries and Their Tenants

If any of my readers have a spare $100,000 in greenbacks about them, they can get up a very respectable menagerie on that capital. Here is an estimate of prices (in gold) for a very tolerable show with which to make a beginning:

One elephant: $16,000
Lion and lioness, with cage: $9,000
Sea cow, a rare animal: $8,000
Pair of very large leopards, and two smaller ditto: $5,000
Australian kangaroo: $2,000
Australian wombat: $2,000
Ostrich: $1,000
Royal Tiger: $4,000
Sacred camel: $2,000
Rare birds, monkeys, and lesser animals, including those of American nativity: $20,000
Total: $60,000

An estimate of the cost in organizing and perfecting a first-class circus, with the requisite proportion of horses, ponies, carriages, wardrobe, trappings, paraphernalia, tents, showbills. etc., was made by a Western reporter, showing the following figures:

The polyhymnia, a mammoth and elaborate musical instrument: $9,000
Golden dragon buggy, made in Chicago: $2,800
The "Undine throne" car: $4,000
Twenty-four wagons and vehicles, at $800 each: $19,200
Sixteen animal cages, cost $1,200 each: $19,200
Harness: $10,000
Thirty-four performing and ring horses at $500 each: $17,000
One hundred and fifty-eight baggage horses at $150 each: $23,700
Trappings, wardrobe and properties: $18,000
Engraving for pictorial bills (the drawing of one cost $1,000): $20,000
Stock of illuminated bills to start with: $12,000
Tent, poles, ropes and seats: $6,000
Zoological panorama, dividing the circus from the menagerie: $2,000
Total: $162,900

Leaping Over Eighteen Elephants

The leapers are coming back. This season what is probably the greatest, most dangerous and most thrilling act ever seen inside a circus tent will be restored to its former place of prominence in the program. Not for twenty years has this great feature been included.

And once more the band will blare and the trim, gayly dressed line of acrobats, the pick of the acrobatic world, will march out into the arena near the close of the big show. The announcer will take his place and the age-old introduction of the leapers used since the first far-distant days of the circus will sound again under the tented dome.

Elephants will be lined up side by side in the arena, gay with brilliant trappings of the Orient, first three or four. Down the narrow runway will come the brilliantly garbed acrobats, the leapers from the springboard their slender bodies will go flying through the air, turning and twisting like birds in some mad, fantastic flight of ecstasy.

High over the backs of elephants they will soar, turning somersaults, twisters, brandies and gainers. Then more elephants will be added to the line. Then horses, as gayly caparisoned as the mighty pachyderms who share the honors of the leaping line with them. More elephants and more horses, then perhaps a camel or two, some ponies, some of the curious lead stock from the menagerie, a sacred buffalo, zebras.

Challenging Fate

Faster and faster come the leapers, light as fairy creatures. Single and double somersaults follow in an endless sequence of madly whirling forms. The drums roll and the trumpets blare. Defying gravity, challenging fate, each leaper takes off, knowing that the arresting hand of death is forever before him, reaching out to claim him in that small space between the last obstacle and the huge tick upon which he is supposed to land.

The Kinkers, circus title of acrobats and performers in general, had been hard at it warming up in various winter quarters. At least one show, the Dutton Circus, personally conducted by Nellie Jordan Dutton, of circus fame, will place the leapers as the featured act on the bill. Unquestionably others will follow.

With this great revival of what was for years the biggest of circus thrills, will come a renewed interest in the possibility of doing a triple-somersault, the greatest ambition of every leaper in the business.

Why It Is Dangerous

An ambition the usual reward for the satisfaction of which has been death. For nothing in the entire list of acts possible to an acrobat is more heavily laden with possibilities of disaster than the triple somersault. Former leapers and old circus people in general still while away many an hour in the circus backyard between shows in endless and frequently heated discussions as to whether or not the triple somersault was ever actually performed in a public performance in the whole history of leaping. The majority opinion holds that it never was. Some go so far as to claim that no man ever made a triple somersault from his feet to his feet and lived to tell the tale. Others offer evidence to prove that the feat has been accomplished.

The evidence, for the most part, is against them. For even a double somersault was considered a mighty feat when leaping first entered the circus routine. Triple somersaults are a terrific strain no matter how they are performed. Alfredo Codona, probably the greatest living aerialist, husband of the late Lillian Leitzel, last of the circus queens, who died from a fall in Europe during the summer, does one twice daily with the Ringling BrothersfBarnum & Bailey show. He does his from a trapeze into the outstretched hands of his brother, hanging head downward from another trapeze.

The great risk involved in attempting a triple somersault is, as acrobats who have attempted it agree, that after the second turn is accomplished and the third turn is attempted, the performer "loses his catch," or, translated from show language, loses control of his body and is governed in his descent by gravity. His head, being heavier than his feet, he is most likely to land on his head and break his neck.

The latest victim of the triple somersault on record is Charles Siegrist, himself a former famous leaper, who crashed to the floor of the Madison Square Garden only a few weeks ago during a performance of the Ringling Brothers show. Siegrist, a trapeze performer, always ended his performance with a triple somersault into the net.

He finished on the night in question, posed for his final great feat, the triple. The drums of Merle Evans' famous band rolled into a crescendo * * something went wrong. His heel struck his trapeze a glancing blow. He struck the net head first. He bounced off onto the floor, making a gallant effort to stand up and give the famous Roman salute of the circus, to show that he was unhurt. He crumpled to the floor. His backbone was broken. He will never be able to perform again.

But, back to the problem of the leapers. Leaping is the most spectacular act ever attempted in a circus. Nothing that equals it for beauty, or for genuine thrills, has ever taken its place. "Which, perhaps, accounts for its return to popular favor this season. A word about how it is done may not be amiss, for, unless you were going to circuses and eating peanuts and popcorn and drinking pink lemonade twenty years ago, it will be a mystery to you.

How It Is Done

I will here introduce to your kind attention Nellie Dutton, owner of the Dutton Circus, who will give you a clear but accurately technical description of the paraphernalia of leaping. Quoting Mrs. Dutton:

"Leaping is done with the aid of a long narrow running board elevated at one end to about ten feet and at the other to about four feet. Then at a distance varying with the ability or habits of the leapers (usually eight feet to the center) is placed the spring or leaping board. This is made of the best seasoned hickory and is formed by attaching hickory about the width and thickness of flooring with cleats, making a board about 24x40 inches. This board is placed with one end attached to a beam of the dimensions of an old-fashioned wagon tongue (hickory) which in turn is supported at each end ,by 'jacks' such as are used to support seats. This beam or pole is about five feet from the ground. With one end of the board on this, the other end, sloping toward the end of the long run, is supported by merely resting unattached to some lower object, usually an elephant tub.

"Thus resting on the smooth surface of an elephant tub (the large drum-shaped affairs on which elephants are taught to stand and perform various feats in the circus) the leaping board is free to move backward and forward as the weight of a man strikes it and causes it to move.

"The last and perhaps most important feature of the leaping paraphernalia is the landing pad; or 'tick.' This is made by filling a huge canvas bag 8x10 feet with clean straw. The tick is then placed ahead of the leaping board on the opposite side of the object or objects over which the leaps are made."

And there you have it, in the lady's own words. And she knows what she is talking about, for out at the Dutton winter quarters a selected group of circus acrobats have been working hard all winter to put together a leaping tournament that will rival anything seen in the greatest day leaping ever knew. Furthermore, in that group will be Roy Alexander, mentioned previously as he who does the backward triple somersault in the Dutton show, who was himself a champion leaper in the old Sells & Downs circus as recently as 1907, and Reno McCree, whose father, Reno McCree Sr., was a noted leaper and double somersaulter, and who saw the passing of leaping from the circus before he was old enough to do much at it. Alexander, at 17, was doing single and double somersaults over horses and banners.

The leapers with the Dutton outfit and their billing are as follows: Bobby Alexander, single and high; Mickey Kazor, single, distance; Tony Scala, double distance; Roy Alexander, double high and distance; Walter Pate, double and high, and Dan Mitchell, comedy leaps.

Probably one of the most famous of the leapers was Frank G. Gardner. He became a circus performer in 1869 as a pad rider. In 1870 he graduated to bareback riding. He was the second man ever to attempt a double somersault over 13 square horses. That was in 1872 with the old Dan Rice circus.

Just precisely what a "square" horse is, I do not profess to know, but both "square' horses and "square" elephants are terms used in describing the feats performed by the old leapers. The language is from no less an authentic source than the route book of P. T. Barnum and the great London circuses. Possibly it means that the animals in question were squared around, side by each. That is only one man's guess and not guaranteed to mean anything more than that. Possibly some old-time showman can help me out, if this is a bad guess.

Over Eighteen Elephants

At Gilmore's Garden, in New York, this same Gardner did a double and a single somersault over five elephants, one camel and three horses, the center elephant elevated on a high pedestal. This was in 1878. Later on, apparently feeling the stir of ambition urging him to even greater feats, he increased his leap to nine elephants, with three on tubs. In Brooklyn, in 1881, he put some more elephants to work for him, clearing 10 in all, five of them on tubs. And in later years he did a double somersault over the backs of 12 elephants, seven on tubs, the center tub being five feet high. In St. Louis he did a double over 18 elephants. There the record stops. Probably, as one wise wag once remarked, anent Mr. Gardner's penchant for increasing his daily dose of elephants, he ran out of elephants.

Victor Lee, now with the Downie Brothers show, feels a distinct stirring of doubt about that 18 elephant leap. In 1879, confides Mr. Lee, Sells Brothers had the most elephants of any show and the number was eight. The year of the great leap, 1881 or thereabouts, the existing elephant supply, assorted by shows, was as follows: Barnum and Bailey, 4; Forepaugh Bros., 5; W. C. Coup, 3; Robinson, 2; W. W. Cole, 2; Burr Robbins, 1, and the Sells show, the same eight. Not until 1896, according to Mr. Lee, did anybody start out to corner the elephant market. That season Forepaugh collected nine from another show, bringing his own total up to nineteen, but he had no leapers on the show that year, which leaves the question of long leaps about where it was in the beginning, a matter of circus legend.

Incidentally, mathematics enters into this question of such a long leap as that over 18 elephants would have to be. An elephant measures in girth from 16 to 20 feet. In diameter it is, not to be too accurate as to details, six to eight feet. This would make an elephant line 18 bulls long cover a distance of in the vicinity of 150 feet. It would take a remarkable performer to make that leap, even with the help of a springboard.

Gardner is credited among old-time circus fans as being the greatest of the leaping line. William H. Batcheller was another great leaper, having on record a double somersault over nine elephants. And there were many others, among them names widely known among circus fans of their day.

Double somersaults were first considered the most remarkable performance possible from the leaping board. John J. Jennings, a veteran writer on circus topics, tells of seeing, in the fifties, an English clown named Tomkinson do the first double he ever saw performed.

An Impossible Feat

It took place in Edinburgh, Scotland, at a benefit performance for Tomkinson. Jennings describes it as follows:

"When the ringmaster had made the preliminary speech and Tomkinson retired up the steep incline which terminated in the springboard, every heart stood still. A quick, impetuous rush down the board, a bound high in the air, a slow revolution, and the gymnast descended nearly to the ground. It seemed impossible to do it, but in the last six feet the curled-up body turned once more, and Tomkinson alighted on the big soft mattress on his feet, but staggering. He was prevented from falling by the ringmaster."

An acrobat by the name of Costello probably was the one to introduce the feat into this country. He added difficulties by placing several horses, side by side, between the springboard and the landing tick. This obstacle leaping became at once the popular method of staging the act. Elephants were used, as were horses, and sometimes both elephants and horses and some other inmates of the led stock of the menagerie by way of novelty.

Double somersaults became the ordinary thing among the really great leapers, and no circus was so poor as to not afford half a dozen double somersaulting leapers in the years that followed. As to the question of a triple somersault, that is something different. Nellie Dutton believes that it has been done. So do various other authorities on circus history. Proof, however, is lacking to any great extent. In an editorial of somewhat recent date, the Billboard, famous publication of the outdoor show world, told of the performance of a noted leaper, John E. Rixford, whose act, it said, consisted of doing a triple somersault over the back of five elephants. The editorial brought down a storm of letters. No acrobat worthy of the name but has cherished some time the ambition to do a triple somersault, from his feet to his feet.

Almost to a man, they challenged the possibility of the Rixford feat. And old circus fans bore them out in their protest. For the history of attempted triples is deeply fringed with black. About the surest way to remove your name from the list of the living is, according to all existing reports, to attempt this hazardous feat. Like the much-quoted paths of glory, triple somersaulting leads but to the grave.

Out of a Windjammer's Diary

Nineteen years ago with the Mighty Haag Shows. Season 1912: Show opened at Shreveport, La., the winter quarters, March 21. Fourteen cars with show including advance. E. Haag, sole owner and manager; Frank McGuyre, legal adjuster; Harley Hubbard, treasurer; Mr. Campbell, front door; W. Williams, supt. inside tickets; Ed. VanCamp, supt. lights; Dick Masters, band leader; Doc Coates, big show announcer; Shorty Rhodes, supt. ring stock; Prof. Nelson, in charge of side-show band and minstrels. Other heads of departments were Fred DeIvy, and Fritz Myers, the latter boss canvas-man. George Oram was side-show manager, and George Moyer was general agent and one of the best in the business. A new big top was put in use for the first time that year at Washington C. H., Ohio, 120-foot round top with 2 fifties and 1 forty-foot middle piece, 4 center poles, making an imposing picture on the lot, and much to the delight of Mr. Haag, in fact it was the pride of everyone with the show. Performance given in 2 rings and on 1 stage. A first class menagerie was carried, 3 elephants, 9 camels, 8 cages of animals. Some of the performers were The Wallett family of noted riders; Frank Miller, gents' principal, he also worked a wonderful trained horse, a beautiful sorrel, with a long mane and tail almost white. Clara Miller, lady principal; Si Kitchi, troupe of Japs, and their performance wonderful. Agnes DeEspa, aerialist; Charlie Diamond and Jimmie O'Neil, hand balancers; DeBolien troupe of acrobats; Woods troupe, wire act; Holzer and Rezloh; Johnson, aerialist; Rudy Gonzallas, performing elephants; Irene Marshall, Mabel James, iron-jaw artists and traps; John Woods, menage horses; Mardello, contortion and clown. Other clowns were Roy Fortune who also did a comedy slack wire act, Gail Boyd, Henry, Roy Barrett, and a few others I do not recall. Colorado Cotton, and his wild west company were featured in the concert.

The features of the side-show were: Miss Nellie King, musical artist, who gave a remarkably clever entertainment, performing on several instruments. She also played the steam calliope in parade. Del Fuego, the human salamander; Chief DeBro, and wife, esquimo midgets. (No, they were not from Alaska. Their home was at Kendallville, Ind.) On April 1, at Humbolt, Tenn., a terrific wind and rain storm struck the show during the night performance, causing general confusion among the performers and the audience. The performance finally had to be discontinued and the band was compelled to make a hasty exit under the side wall. The show made 66 stands in Canada that season through Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, a week on Prince Edward Island, and as far north as South Porcupine, Ontario. The railways used the narrow gauge rail on Prince Edward Island at that time so the show train could not be taken over of course, so on Sunday, July 28, at Point DuChene, Nova Scotia, the wagons, with all equipment and all employes were transported from there by steamer to Summerside arriving late the same evening, performances given Monday. Ordinary cars moved the show that week, about 28 cars were used, they being of course shorter than the regular show cars. The following Sunday all equipment and employes were landed again at Point DuChene, placed on show train and tour continued. A Mr. Carroll, who was a fine scenic painter with the show and a much liked gentleman had the misfortune, at that time, to have an arm clawed by a lion and he died from blood poisoning. At St. Catherines, Ont., that year after the elephants were loaded at night, someone set off an explosive on top of the elephant car. Luckily the injuries to the elephants were only slight. The parties responsible for this cowardly act were never found. Big show band: Dick Masters, leader and cornet. Everette James, W. Cubbison, cornets; Carl Sparks, Joe Day, Edward Fowler, Dad Whitsell, clarinets; Charles Redrick (now leader Al. G. Barnes show), A. W. Hughes, Charles Smith, altos; C. E. Duble, Andrew Peterson, trombones; Al. Marshall, baritone; Emil Peterson, tuba, Bob Blassingame, trap drummer. The big band wagon that was used with the Mighty Haag Show in 1912 was still in us as a band wagon with another show the past summer.

The last year on rail was 1914, but Mr. Haag still continues at the head of his famous show and the Mighty Haag Show since that time has been one of the leading motorized circuses touring the States. Some of the staff and performers have been connected with Mr. Haag for over twenty years which speaks mighty well for this kind and respected showman.

Adam Forepaugh 's Honesty

Adam Forepaugh had a queer sense of humor and fairness, despite the fact that his show was notorious for the number of grifters who followed in its wake. He often amazed his associates with his insight.

In an Ohio town the printer was so insistent in being paid on the spot that the governor became irritated and decided to hold up payment until the very last moment. By dusk the printer was paid and started uptown. A few minutes later one of the grifters who had overheard the controversy between Forepaugh and the printer, sneaked up to the circus manager and shoved a roll of bills into his hand.

"What is this?" asked Forepaugh, who retained his Kensington dialect to the last.

"The rhino you gave the printer guy," was the reply.

"Found it, of course?"

"Sure, governor," with a wink.

"Well," said Forepaugh, "lose it again' an let the guy find it."

The amazed grifter went away while the printer, who was on his way to police headquarters to register a kick, was surprised to have his money handed to him by the crook, who told him he had seen it drop from his pocket. In his joy at getting the money back, the printer gave the grifter five dollars as a "reward for his honesty."

Circus Women

Not so very many years ago there was a general impression that women who traveled with a circus were - well, not exactly desirable dinner guests, for example. Daughters were forbidden to associate with them and dire warnings were issued to sons to eschew them and all their works. They were automatically and unthinkingly included in the opinion of that time - correct or not - which maintained about chorus girls, who were represented from time to time in the press as lurid and seductive damsels in every sense of the word, waiting to ensnare Junior or Papa with their disgraceful wiles. To a considerable extent a slight modification of that ancient opinion still exists, especially outside the great urban centers. The greater the rusticity of the region, the more pronounced the belief.

It is understandable and the circus in days fortunately long past was partially responsible for it, even though that responsibility was vicarious. It was then the practice, when circuses were small and rather unstable financially, to permit various concessionaires to travel on the circus train and exhibit their shows on the circus lot. They had no connection whatever with the circus except that they paid for the privilege of accompanying it and the circus management could exercise no restraint over the shows these concessions gave as long as the bounds of decency were not exceeded - and these limits were rather elastic when money was scarce. No matter how splendid the circus may have been, no matter how rigorous its demands upon the behavior of its own people, the actions of the women of these "side shows" were often such that they could - and should - have been condemned and denounced.

That the circus proper was not to blame was unknown to the public and the entire pageant, regarded as a unit, suffered. These side shows no longer travel with the circus. The Big Show runs everything on the lot at present even to the vending of peanuts and the unwelcome little shows and stands - the "trailers" - are obliged to set up their flimsy and often unsanitary booths off the lot.

This change has not resulted in a better type of circus woman. It has merely prevented the unmerited criticism of decent circus women because of the actions of others which they could not control, who appeared to be but were not in close professional association with them. Circus women are as they have always been; in fact, many of the women of the present day circus are the same women who were working on the shows then. I don't know of a more wholesome group, with more representative individuals, in any other business or profession in the world.

That broad comparison is, I believe, allowable. My work has taken me essentially everywhere and my contacts have not been solely professional. I have friends who are statesmen, editors, professional men, scientists, artists, politicians, merchants and industrialists and lots of them - many of them nationally prominent. I have met their families and their friends and I know whereof I speak. Of course, I am not referring disparagingly of my friends, but I am trying to show the scope of my observations and opportunities for making them.

Rather than being responsible for a mental or physical or moral slackness the circus is directly responsible for the creation and development of desirable attributes in its women performers. They must be alert and they must be physically fit, for obvious reasons. They could not do their work, which is generally hazardous, were they not. They must always look their best, for no show will continue to tolerate a woman's negligence of her personal appearance. Some of the most beautiful girls in the world are with us now and they are as lovely as they are beautiful - and I think that loveliness is a quality that emanates from innate decency.

These women possess to an exaggerated degree the best feminine traits. They are intensely loyal, exceptionally generous, wholly gracious, vivacious and charming. They are tolerant and forgiving; never interfere unwarrantably in the purely personal affairs of others; their conduct is exemplary - made so by compulsion if not naturally so by choice; they are uncomplaining in the face of difficulties, courageous and brave when really in danger and many of them, considering their necessarily nomadic life, are pathetically domestic. They live their lives under conditions which would drive the average woman frantic and manage to attain happiness. Ever since I have been old enough to entertain an intelligent opinion I have rejoiced that most of them are my friends. Had I a present unrestricted choice of friendship with any class of women in the world I would unhesitatingly select circus women again.

One of the best proofs possible of the general recognition of the wholesome conditions which maintain in "the back yard" - that mysterious region where circus people live and from which the public is excluded for exactly the same reasons that you desire privacy in your own home - is the fact that practically all circus women who become mothers are not only willing for their children to be reared in the atmosphere of the circus but actually anxious for them to be. There are any number of typical circus families where several complete generations have worked on the show and the present generation is continuing to do so.

The Rieffenach family is a typical example. Both Mr. and Mrs. Rieffenach were children of circus families, who met, went through their courtship and married while on a circus abroad. It was a number of years ago and they have become the parents of three splendid daughters - Rose, Mitzi and Bertie, all of whom work in their present riding act, together with two sons-in-law. Carl Jahn, who is married to Mitzi, is the child of circus parents and the new family formed by their marriage, will continue to be of the circus.

Rose also married within the circus. Her husband is Clarence Bruce, whose sister, Vera, is the only woman who works with the really marvelous Codonas, who are unquestionably the best group of aerialists today. Alfredo Codona, the "leaper" of that act, is the only trapeze performer who has ever, in the history of the circus, included a triple sommersault as a regular part of his act and is one of the very few living people who can do it at all.

He is the personification of grace in the air and just as graceful on the ground as he is when he is working. He is handsome, affable and affectionate - and if you think I am too ardently favorable in my opinion of him I ask you to excuse me. You see, he is my husband. Not entirely without ability as a single aerialist myself, it is quite possible that there is another circus family in contemplation. Both his parents and mine were circus people, all aerialists.

The romance of Rose Rieffenbach and Clarence Bruce was the usual one, as far as its development was concerned. They could see relatively little of each other, of course, and then only under the strictest chaperonage. The code of the circus is inflexible in that respect. They eventually decided to end the restrictions and marry.

At the time the show was approaching New Orleans, we wired Tom Killilea, our advance man, to make the necessary arrangements for the wedding and when we did we presented him with a task that taxed even his ingenuity. To start with, it was Sunday and there are certain restrictions regarding nuptial masses on that day observed by the Catholic Church. There was no time to publish bans; the usual certificates of birth and baptism were not available; the State of Louisiana required medical examinations and, of course, the municipal health offices were closed. To make the entire situation even more unique, it developed that Rose had been born when her mother was showing in Austria, while Clarence, during a time when his inconsiderate Australian parents had been working in Asia, had been born in Hong Kong!

Everything seemed too improbable to be real but our advance man continued to struggle in New Orleans as the circus train drew nearer and nearer. At last a ray of hope developed when he was shunted to the Bishop of the Diocese, who happened to have been a mission priest in Hong Kong the year Bruce was born and baptized. Killilea wired the train, Bruce miraculously knew the name of the priest who had baptized him - and the same man who officiated in Hong Kong married him in New Orleans! But such is the circus. The Ernestos, another family with a riding act, is as completely and thoroughly a circus family as the Rieffenachs; mother, father, three daughters and two sons, all working on the show and none of them willing to change for any other possible thing.

An excellent example of the type of woman who is a product of the circus is illustrated by Ella Bradna. Her parents were circus people and she was raised on the lot. When she was old enough to do so she worked in her father's act, which was principally a riding spectacle. She took a more prominent part in it as she grew older, until, when she was seventeen, she was starring.

When the old Barnum and Bailey Show was working in Paris, Ella was badly thrown onto the floor of an indoor arena when her horse failed to take a high jump. A young Frenchman, an officer in the artillery, leaped from his box, carried her out of the way of other horses making for the hurdle and saw that she was cared for by the other circus people who came running to her aid.

The following day there were flowers and although the young French officer saw the next day's matinee and knew that Ella was unhurt he nevertheless formally called to inquire about her condition. He saw nearly every show we gave in France, getting protracted leave from the Army to follow the show from city to city. He fell desperately in love with Ella, despite his inability to associate with her freely.

Naturally, being a Frenchman, he discussed the situation with his parents before he told Ella. They were horrified at the idea of their son marrying a circus woman - and instantly set the elaborate machinery of investigation of possible future daughters-in-law into motion. The reports began to come in promptly.

Those people were provincial French. They lived in Alsace and their standards were stricter, by far, than those of an American family in equivalent circumstances, yet when they had learned all there was to know about Ella they freely consented to their son's marriage.

He resigned from the Army and joined the show as an assistant to the riding master. Shortly he and Ella were married. They still are and Fred Bradna is now the master of equitation for this show, serving as ring master during the performances. Ella is showing a magnificent spectacle which is the most beautiful single element of the entire circus. I don’t know of a happier marriage anywhere, in the circus or out.

Lillian Compton, who, with her husband Cy operates our Wild West "concert," is an old show woman and her entire family shares her love for the circus. She was with Buffalo Bill for years - until that show passed out of existance with the death of Col. Cody - working with her husband in the usual Wild West acts. When she became the mother of a son he was promptly named Cody and both he and his younger sister Myrtle work on the show now with their parents.

I don't know of a finer example of tact and consideration than that being demonstrated constantly by one of our women. Jennie Silbon, who has been working on various shows ever since she was a child - she is now almost fifty years old and looks every day of thirty five - had perfected one of the cleverest little sketches on the traps (which is "circus" for a trapeze aerial act) produced in recent years. Her husband Eddie, who has also been an aerialist for years, helped her work.

He was one "catcher" of the act; he it was who received the flying body of the "leaper" as it hurtled through the air. Jennie was the catcher at the other end. Their act was prone to vary and its complete effectiveness depended largely upon the complete understanding which existed between them. Then, without warning, Eddie had a slight heart attack. He has had to remain on the ground. It would likely be fatal for him to return to his work in the air, but he has not been told.

His wife has assured him that it will not be long before he is back on his beloved trapeze, that just a little patience is necessary, but it requires constant watching on her part to prevent him from cautiously testing the doctor's opinion. She exercises this supervision even while she carries on in the act herself but does it so kindly and sweetly that there is no suspicion in her husband's mind that all is not well.

Sometimes this solicitude for other members of the family acts as an actual bar to the success of an act. Lulu Wallenda, her husband and her children comprise the personnel of one of the most dangerous and thrilling high wire acts the world has ever seen, and she was forever perturbed about the safety of her husband during the time the act was actually working. That she was exposed to as much danger - even more, in fact - meant nothing to her but her constant apprehension because of her husband's danger grew so great that eventually she could not participate in the work with that degree of self assurance and confidence which makes for the greatest safety.

The Wallendas worked on a wire forty feet above the planks of one of the center stages. They not only balanced without the customary parasols to steady them but they would form the most unbelievable combinations, which seemed too unstable to possible work on a wire. One of the sons would mount the shoulders of his father and the two of them would swing nonchalantly across the empty space spanned by their narrow steel band; then the Wallanda daughter would mount on the shoulders of her brother. Sometimes Lulu herself would occupy the top position of the three but her own danger never seemed evident to her. She continued to worry about her husband, Herman, with his feet on the wire and in the best possible position in the event of a fall - for he would have a chance to grasp the wire, while those on his shoulders wouldn't have a chance in the world.

Finally her concern resulted in a family conference. Now there are two acts, almost similar; Lulu works in one and Herman in the other and both are of such excellence that it is doubtful if they will ever be exceeded.

Herman has improved his act slightly by the addition of a balancing feature which would be difficult on the ground. Two of the sons walk to the middle of the wire with an iron pole suspended from the middle of their chest and back, respectively. Herman clambers up the back of the son nearest him with a chair, places it indifferently on the iron pole and seats himself. Then the daughter mounts to his shoulders! To close the act the sons walk to the little platform at the end of the wire carrying the pyramid with them. The tremendous danger lies in the fact that they all work without a net below them.

As a wire act I believe it is the ultimate. I never watch it any more for I am sure disaster is inevitable and I don't want to be present when it happens. Lulu is content with the present arrangement, for she tells me it has made for greater safety for the children, too.

The very origins of the women of the circus is a guarantee of their integrity. Many - perhaps most - of them simply grow up in the circus; they are the children of old circus families. Occasionally a woman will join the show because of contacts she has with friends already with it and it is not likely that she would be permitted or encouraged to join if she were not entirely desirable.

On rare occasions we will acquire a woman who has never worked on a show before but who is so imbued with the idea of circus life that her very insistence finally wins her a trial and she stays. Such a case is illustrated by Anna Louise Hutchinson.

Her father is wealthy and she was raised, from infancy, with all the appurtenances of wealth - nurses, governesses, tutors, private schools, finishing trips abroad and an adequate presentation to society. Her time was largely spent thereafter in the fashionable resorts of the country. She became interested in horses, always showed jumpers at the various important horse shows and decided that she wanted to work with jumpers and "high school" horses on this circus.

If I have made her antecedents clear you can imagine the difficulties she had to overcome but she finally prevailed and is working every day in an equestrian act and she is extraordinarily popular. Of course, she is a gracious woman, intelligent and amiable. She came to the show knowing that she was entering a life where standards were different - but only because they are more definiate, stricter and less flexible. She wasn't at all inclined to do anything but learn to adapt herself and almost at once she was being helped and coached by every woman on the lot.

Frequently women on the show will mention, causually, "You have the same name as the treasurer of the show, Mr. Charles R. Hutchinson." She smilingly acquiesces, as if it were a more or less amusing coincidence. Practically no one knows that she is his daughter.

Her conduct was a decided contrast to that of one woman who joined us last year. She, as it happened, tried to simulate a background comparable to that which had been true of Miss Hutchinson and imagined that it required her to assume an air of superiority to the women who became her intimates. As a matter of fact, had her simulated antecedents been veracious she would not have been in strange company. It was remarkable how soon she left the show.

We have one woman with us now - whose name, for obvious reasons I shall refrain from telling you - who typifies the grit of circus women. When the show was touring Europe a number of years ago she was a charming, lovable girl working with high school horses. In Paris she met a Russian who was a member of the old aristocracy of that country. He became infatuated with her, followed the show and proposed regularly in London, Vienna, Berlin, Budapest and was finally accepted in Moscow.

The girl who married him did so because she loved him. Her wedding, however, placed her in a position which was almost gorgeous. The following year, when we were working in Moscow again, she called on us and I spent a week-end at her home - a veritable palace a short distance away from the city. She had wealth, servants, luxury and happiness; and then the revolution came. Her husband was taken away one morning and disappeared. She had been so kind to the peasants of the vicinity that she was not molested, and she remained - superintending the estates and waiting for the husband who never returned. She finally went mad - and spent nearly six years in a Soviet mad house before she recovered her reason. She promptly returned to America, and is again in a riding act.

She is sweet and charming, but ineffably sad. She has resumed the use of her former professional name and there are only two people on the show who know of her tragedy for she is completely reserved about her past. She would be most unhappy if I revealed her identity.

Charlotte Shive, who is with the show again this year after an absence of several seasons, showed in her own quiet way the stamina and courage that the circus breeds in its women. She had been a student nurse in one of the great hospitals in New York City. The show always used a lot across the street and Charlotte met - at a private show for the patients of the hospital after which the performers were introduced to the staff of the hospital - the man who became her husband.

Frank Shive was an aerialist and a good one. He patiently taught his work to his new wife and Charlotte was soon "flying;" swinging from a trapeze to her husband, who caught her, and back to the trapeze again. She was particularly adept and was soon an important element of the act.

They traveled on this show for several years, until one day, when we were working in Wenatchee, Washington, Frank collapsed on the trap. He had had about everything possible wrong with his lungs for sometime and had concealed it from everyone but our doctor.

Further work was impossible until he recovered. It was suggested that he go to Arizona until he was well and it was arranged that Charlotte could close anywhere in the Southwest that suited her, so she could join Frank. Almost before Frank had left the lot a bashful, tremendously embarrassed canvassman approached Charlotte, and handed her a grimy hat overflowing with small change! It was a collection taken by the canvassmen and laborers for her benefit. Naturally, she declined the money and returned it to the men, but she has never forgotten the gesture.

That collection was poorly advised and inopportune, for Frank and Charlotte had saved their money and needed no assistance but both were very popular with everyone on the lot and it was almost inevitable that the more or less improvident canvassmen should do the one thing which would have been urgently necessary in their own case.

Frank got as far as Los Angeles, when he became too ill to travel. Charlotte joined him at once, bought a small bungalow in the Sierra Madre district, installed a nurse to care for him during the day and started to look for work. She took care of her husband herself during the night's.

Before she found employment there was a most expensive operation and shortly after another was necessary. Just as their savings were almost gone Charlotte had an opportunity to do stunt work for one of the film studios and jumped at the chance.

For a good many months she risked her life regularly in various forms of trapeze work eighty feet above a concrete floor, with no protecting net beneath, to get Frank well and back with the circus. It was a futile effort.

Now she is with us again, just as popular as ever, and working alone. She has what we call a "tooth act," and swings from a single line suspended from a soft pad which she grips between her jaws.

All the circus women, with the exception of a very, very few, live most intimately. They must, in the very nature of things. They occupy a common dressing tent and use the same sleeping cars. The wives have one car, the unmarried women another. It is in the dressing tent and the cars that their lives are largely lived. They sew, do trivial laundrying and bathe under conditions of great intimacy, but it is never so great as to be obnoxious or embarrassing.

When the women's dressing tent is erected their trunks are moved in, together with a little dressing table and mirror for each of them. The property woman and wardrobe mistress lays out the "props" and costumes that are too cumbersome to be packed in the individual trunks so they will be available when the performers arrive. Just before they do, two buckets of water - one hot, the other cold - will be placed at each dressing table, and the tent is ready.

Generally the day begins late in the morning. The cars will have been switched near the lot so there will be no difficulty in reaching the train, if necessary. Breakfast will always be ready in the cook tent - for the kitchen and commissary rolls away at least two hours ahead of the rest of the circus when we move - and after breakfast the women begin converging on their dressing tent.

Over the week ends, if it is at all possible, everyone will live at a hotel. It is a pleasant relief from the routine of the week, for it means a bath room which seems tremendously spacious and fairly prodigal as to hot water, and a quiet bed - although some of the women who have been with circuses for years complain that they cannot sleep well except in a moving berth.

There has always been an impression, and I have found it surprisingly prevalent, that women traveling with a circus are entirely without personal restrictions; that they are free to do what they like, come and go much as they please provided their work does not suffer and that they are accountable to no one but themselves and their consciences for their actions. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Women on the show are held more strictly accountable for their behaviour and conduct than most wives are and, to many people, they must be like Caesar's wife, above suspicion. They not only have to conform to all the unwritten rules of conduct which have grown into the inflexible code of the circus but they may not deviate far from the standards of acceptability erected by their companion performers. Usually there is a strictly enforced circus regulation that every performer on the show must be in quarters not later than midnight. I have known of many instances where members of the staff have actually searched the towns and cities looking for possible violators of this rule.

It is relatively rare when a woman on the show will associate in any informal capacity with a casual "towner." There is no need for it; every one of her requirements are met by the circus. If, as is occasionally necessary, shopping must be done it is almost certain that several women will visit the stores together. They will look less like the old notion of the appearance of circus women than day resembles night. It might be a sedate little excursion by several successful professional women as far as appearances are concerned and there will be nothing done or said which identifies them in any way.

If you ever hear - or perhaps have heard in the past - a girl or woman loudly announcing at every opportunity that she "was working with the circus" in a grand manner as though it conferred distinction upon her in some vague way you may be sure of one of two things - either she is an imposter or else she is a totally inexperienced girl who has been with the show but a few days. The latter is nit likely.

Circus women are not at all reluctant to admit that they are circus women. They simply see no reason to boast of it. Of course, when it is advisable for the sake of common politeness - or any other reason - they freely admit it and do so with considerable pride. Why shouldn't they?

Circus women are better taken care of on the lot than women are on the streets of any city in America. I do not know of a single instance within the recent past when a woman has been offended with calculated nastiness by any of the men on the show. The performers, of course, are gentlemen, but the laborers are, in many instances, quite different, believe me. On the lot, however, they adapt themselves to the code of the show.

Every male employee, from the manager or the owner of the show to the least important canvassman knows that he is a member of a big family and that his responsibilities include the protection of the other members of that family, if it becomes necessary. They are more keen to attend to their duties as far as the protection of women is concerned than they are to many of their others and the women know it.

Were one of us deliberately offended the normal and entirely reasonable procedure would be to tell the first man we met - be he laborer, performer or ring master - of the incident. He would function thereafter just as we all wish our brothers would in similar circumstances; then the offending male, no matter what his status or importance, would leave hurriedly, and permanently.

Protection afforded circus women extends much further than that - even beyond the circus itself, for once a circus woman, always a circus woman. An old performer who has left the show for any honorable reason who later finds herself in difficulties from which she can be extricated by money has only to let her need be known. Money immediately becomes available. There is no particular effort made to solicit contributions: they are just made. It is something which is done voluntarily, naturally, as the reasonable thing.

The friend to whom she has written her difficulties will probably pin the letter, or portions of it, onto the side walls of the women's dressing tent. Then she will begin to find cash on her dressing table, women will quietly give her tight little rolls of bills, money will come in from the men who have been told by their wives and when it seems that everybody has helped the chances are that some youngster will come to me and shyly ask to borrow ten dollars to send along, as she is "temporarily out of funds."

Only once, during my entire association with the circus, have I known of a collection actually being made in the usual understanding of the term and then I did it myself. I received a letter from a woman I had hardly known when she was on the show, but it was the most pathetic thing I ever encountered. I went over to the women's dressing tent and announced, "Girls, I'm collecting!" and I did just that. Many of the women began to contribute really substantial amounts before they even asked me who and why. I later learned how much good we were able to do with the little we really did and I am positive that every woman on the lot was as happy about it as I was.

The women of the circus contribute freely of their most valuable things - their time and their ability. None of them ever refuse to participate in a private performance for the amusement or entertainment of inmates in an institution who would not otherwise have seen the circus. Of course, they do not get paid for the extra work but their reward is obtained from the very real and tremendous satisfaction which they all get from the pleasure and happiness they give to unfortunates. Several of the best acts on the show cannot work as these little private entertainments, for the women are so certain to weep because of the pathos of the situation that it becomes impossible for them to follow their routine.

The best and most comprehensive description of circus women I accidentally overheard from a lovely old lady who was brought to the "back yard' for a visit by her granddaughter, who had married one of our animal men. She was so sweet, so gently charming and so utterly unsophisticated that everyone on the lot took her - almost literally - into their hearts.

We showed her everything; she visited the dressing tents while the women prepared for their numbers; she saw them sewing, teaching their children and even had lunch in the cook tent. She was such a refreshing breath of pure motherliness that she couldn't possibly have been as pleased at her strange experience as we were with her visit to us.

When she left, I heard her say to her grand-daughter as they passed my tent, "Why, they're not a bit different from anyone else, are they?"

A Joe B. McMahon Item

Joe B. McMahon was shot by a deputy sheriff from Taylor county, Texas, April 2, 1897. I stood before his grave in Delavan, Wisc., a year ago last summer, but the only information on the tombstone was "Joe B. McMahon, 1897." I tried to find information in a back file of a local paper without success.

The deputy sheriff came to Wichita to arrest two grifters as a result of their nefarious work while they were in some town in Taylor county the previous fall. McMahon came out of a room in the hotel where many of the circus people were staying and asked to see the warrant. George Holland, of the third generation of troupers of that clan, in Delavan, told me this. He was carrying a baby in one arm, and as he spoke to the sheriff, he dropped his other hand on his hip, a characteristic position, Holland said, but which the deputy construed as a move toward a gun, and he banged away at McMahon, claiming self defense.

The show was going to open April 16, but in consequence of the shooting, didn't get started until May 1. But it went out that season and was in Belleville, Ill., Sept. 19, though Holland said it didn't go out again. He was simply mistaken. McMahon was a fine-looking man with great physical strength. He was a graduate of the law department of the University of Michigan, but had never practiced, following the rest of his family into the circus business. He had not long before gone into Masonry, and, at the time he was fatally shot, was a thirty-second degree Mason. Holland said the deputy who shot him was a Mason too.

Carl Allen, former treasurer, of the show, bought it for $6,000, the general supposition being that he bought it for Mrs. McMahon. Frank Smith, formerly with McMahon, came from Kansas City at that time, and was reported to have held a mortgage on all or a part of the show, and it was said that he was going to operate it. But the rumor was incorrect, as he refused to have anything to do with it, and returned to Kansas City, where he bought a hotel. Incidentally, Smith started up a Howes London Circus later, and sold it or a part of it to Jerry Mugavan and Bert Bowers then dropped out of their association. I have no record of the show after 1897, and imagine it was near the end of its rope. Mrs. McMahon, an, old woman in poor health, lives in Danville, Ill. She didn't answer my letters of inquiry. There was a son, I saw about recently, Joe B. McMahon, Jr., who had been associated with George Steele, legal adjuster, as assistant.

Tillie: An Obituary

The life of man is three score years and ten. The life of an elephant runs a bit longer. Tillie died at the age of one hundred and twenty. Far too young, for it was this pachyderm's mission on earth to make children happy. She wasn't loquacious, like most women. All she could say was "Papa" and that only when her owner - John G. Robinson - was close enough to hear it. For she loved Robinson, just as much as John G. loved her. She had lived through three generations of the family, and never did anything to shame the name. She never ruffled a keeper; she never went on a rampage; she never acted unruly or disobedient. She was intelligent, gentle, kind and dependable. She loved children and one could almost detect a twinkle in her eye as she imitated the crying of a baby for their amusement. And she could do it well, too. Not that she was a cry-baby! Far from that - in fact she could suffer pain patiently, silently. She never trumpeted for anger - only for joy.

And this patience was exemplified all through the hours of her approaching death. A tongue that insisted on swelling until it had filled her entire throat and slowly but surely choked her to death, while vetenaries, high in their profession, looked on in pity. Her beadlike eyes looked up at the medical men and seemed to be beggingly asking them for relief in this her hour of suffering. But they were unable to help her, as much as they wanted to do so. They could not stem the swelling. So Tillie died as she had lived, quietly, with malice towards none.

And when she had gone to that bourne from whence no animal e'er returns, her loss was mourned by thousands Aye, hundreds of thousands!

And the man who will miss her most is Dan Noonan her keeper for nearly a score of years. He could always depend on Tillie. Of course there's Tony and Pit and Clara - true he loves them all, but it isn't the same without Tillie And John G. will miss, her, too, as much as a busy man can miss an elephant. Tillie never led John G. into any lawsuits on account of damages. She stood faithfully by him, pressed him closer with her trunk and at times seemed as if she really had a soul. She knew when she made kids glad! She was appreciative of the tons of peanuts they fed her She appeared to be smiling always, as if somewhere down in her big heart, she was happy. Awfully happy!

When Tillie breathed her last, her remains were not thrown onto a rubbish pile or sold to a glue manufactory. Tillie was worthy of a decent burial and her owner would not have it otherwise. So in the quietest spot on the Robinson property in Terrace Park, where there are plenty of shade trees and verdant grass in the summertime, Tillie is buried. In a discarded cistern - clean and strongly built As f God in his infinite wisdom had prearranged this quiet place for Tillie's interment.

Her funeral was an impressive one. She has a tombstone erected to her memory and the epitaph to be enscrolled thereon will be

Tillie
120 years old
Died Jan. 17, 1932.

This will be a well-earned tribute to a worthy quadruped. There isn't a tombstone big enough to record all of her good deeds. They were manifold, what with lifting an overturned wagon from a man who was pinioned beneath it; helping in the sale of million dollars of Liberty bonds during the World War; knocking down the leader of a herd of elephants running wild. And so one could unfold a myriad of exploits in which this lady participated.

Tillie was the oldest elephant in the United States. But she didn't care for that distinction. She wanted to be known as the kindest elephant in the world. And she was all of that.

There wasn't anything high-hat about her. She was just a plain, ordinary trouper, and she was proud of it. A sewing-circle or kaffee-klatsch had no appeal to her femininity. But a circus? That was different; that awakened within her every emotion. She loved to hear the band, take part in the parade and then do her act. She loved shrine circuses during her latter years and she played so many of them, she only regretted that she wasn't eligible for the Eastern Star. She seemed to live just for these things. She had appeared in public at least fifty thousand times, and the applause which always greeted her at the finish never enlarged her cranium.

She was familiarly known as "The Old Girl" among her intimates. And she died as she had lived - among friends.

The only thing to break the solemness of her burial was the boom of a cannon. Tony fired it. Then he waited. Where was Tille who always entered after this cue dressed as a Red Cross Nurse and bending over the man who was killed night after night? But the Red Cross Nurse so well portrayed by Tillie wasn't working in the regular routine today. She was cold in death herself. If her death was only a sham, too, how happy the children who loved her would be to-day. The cannon cue had passed into the ether unheard by an animal actress who will hereafter be missing from the mundane cast. Tillie was taking part in a better and bigger show in that heaven to which elephants go. And good elephants must surely have somewhere like that to go.

Realizing at last that death was in their midst, with Noonan's help the trio of sorrowful elephants - all co-workers of Tillie's - knelt and bowed their massive heads. Then they departed, quietly, sad. It was the first time that the small herd was returning to their barn with one of the troupe missing. They left Tillie behind, buried and surrounded by beautiful floral pieces sent by mourning friends. But her head sticks majestically above the earth - which later was encased in the vault. Her trunk was extended, as if begging not to be entirely covered by cold, damp earth. And in death her eyes are looking towards the place where all that was dear to her in life has been left behind.

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