Shop Talk

Last season Burly Bluff, the manager and owner of one of the largest circuses and menageries, made an extraordinary season, playing to vast numbers of delighted people and adding enormously to his already substantial bank account. His season’s proceeds being beyond all precedent, it naturally came to the notice and discussion of the Turn Over Club at its several conventions at the office of the Billboard. The receipts of the show were so large that they were a matter of much comment. But at one particular gathering, inspired by the editor of the Billboard, the representative experts present expressed themselves, not to the enlightenment of the head of the sanctum but to his entire mystification. To his inquiry as to whom the credit was due for Burly Bluff’s unparalleled success, the several gentlemen present responded as below stated.

Mr. John Ringling, no novice in the matter of selecting territory for a show, freely expressed himself:

“Burly Bluff made money because his show was put out in the right towns. I don’t think that from spring till fall there was a quisby or a doubtful stand. No show, Bluff’s or anybody else’s, can make money under unfavorable conditions. No amount of advertising or any quantity or quality of merit or vastness of dimensions can supply the advantage of spotting the right spots.”

All the members looked at each other, some with nods of acquiescence; and then a general desire was expressed to hear Mr. Peter Sells. Being nothing loath, that past master of the art of announcement went on to say:

“There is much force in what our friend Ringling has said but, admitting that Burly Bluff’s country was selected with rare judgment, no one will dispute that his outdoor advertising in every variety was something stupendous. To be frank, I never saw better and I concede and opine that Bluff caught the coin by the paper on the wall.”

Will Donaldson did not have to be asked to address the astute assembly. (34) He took his cue from and agreed with Peter Sells:

“That’s just where you are right. The paper was all lithographed, every sheet of it, and the window work was simply out of sight.”

“Yes,” put in Hennegan, “you should have seen my giant dates.”

And then Dick Ball had an oar to put in in behalf of the contractor:

“Bluff’s man made mighty good contracts. I never knew of better and I am something of a close figurer myself.”

“I should smile,” William Henry Gardner remarked.

“I should rise to remark,” Mike Coyle added.

“In the single, all important item of lots,” Richard resumed, “Bluff was never left. His contractor always got him the best and most centrally located at the lowest price. How could he help but succeed with a man of such judgment and economy in front of him?”

J. M. Kane was not convinced and, having a mind of his own, was not slow in stating the case as he saw it from where he sat:

“Oh, fudge! And I don’t so remark out of any feeling of disrespect for the opinions of my seniors. As a looker-on in Vienna the past season, I came to the conclusion that Burly Bluff’s great year came entirely from the newspapers. He put no curb or limit on his director of publications and the result, gentlemen, you know it.”

By this time the enthusiast was on his feet and gesticulating in his ardor. With warmth, he added:

“Every newspaper column poured dollars and dollars into Bluff’s red wagon.”

Just as Kane sat down, Captain F. B. Wilson was able to rise and express himself. He spoke with some feeling and marked emphasis:

“You are forgetting the press representative with the show. That fellow was a hummer. His mill ran all the while and he fed the newspapers ahead of the show with all kinds of sensations and write-ups. The greatest inventive genius that I know of in this line. He would get up the most impossible yarn and believe it himself by the time the ink was dry. You couldn’t deny anything he put in print. And it all went, every line, and you couldn’t pick up an exchange in a newspaper office without seeing something of his copied. Fact! I know what I’m talking about.”

William Porter, a retiring, sturdy sort of a person who had been listening attentively in the back room, gained confidence enough in his self-evident modesty to come in and say his say:

“I was with Bluff’s advance and I am satisfied that it was the country work that did the business. That is just what it was.”

As Porter was a man of few words, he had no more to say. After a spell of solemn silence, Bob Stickney had the floor (as much as he wanted of it) to remark:

“Burly Bluff always gave a good ring performance. And last season he outdid himself and did the business of his life on the strength of his entertainment.”

As Stickney, Jr., came to an anchor, the editor of the Billboard remarked that he had jabbed the mucilage brush into the ink bottle. And, looking from one to the other who had unburdened themselves as to the foundation of Burly Bluff’s fortunate tour, he remarked with a rather amused air:

“Many men, many minds.”

None of the previous speakers taking umbrage at the sally, he addressed the Sage of Geneva:

“What has Mr. Colvin to say on so interesting a topic? Certainly a man who served so many years under the banner of George F. Bailey & Co., Adam Forepaugh, Montgomery Queen, and W. C. Coup must be able to communicate without talking through his hat.”

“Burly Bluff had a very complete menagerie,” the doctor responded.

“Say, look here, Darwin,” cried Louis E. Cooke, “spiels in the interest of Hagenbeck don’t go.”

Everybody laughed and Colvin‘s cheeks reddened to the color of a ripe apple off his New York State farm. For a moment the doctor hesitated but after a bit he resumed:

“As I was about to say when I was interrupted by the hotel keeper from Newark, Burly Bluff had a very complete menagerie and kept every cage full the entire season. Like my old master, Adam Forepaugh the First, he never allowed that department to deteriorate.”

A chorus of large “Oh’s!” from all around the room did not dismay the determined doctor.

“The menagerie,” he resumed, “is the greatest drawing factor with the show. I have kept tabs on it during my entire career and, as the Dutchman said, ‘I have long time in dot pizness pen.’”

“Did Hagenbeck say that?” joshed Si Semon, who, being baldheaded, is not able to wear long hair like Major Burke, also in advance of Buffalo Bill.

“You are not in the Wild West, Mr. Semon!” sharply returned the doctor, “and the gentlemen present have not become uncivilized by contact with savages.”

Si sighed. Not at the retort, but laughed with the rest. The editor of the Billboard recovered the mucilage brush out of the ink bottle and said something. After the explosion and the resumption of calm, the veteran Colvin returned to the subject uppermost.

“You may jibe and you may josh but there isn’t a one of you but will admit, if he cares to adhere to the truth and be frank about it, that the animals draw and are the great cards. Out of my own experience and from personal knowledge I can vouch for great profits from the menageries. How much did the ‘Flatfoots‘ owe to the exhibition of the first hippopotamus in America? Didn’t Adam Forepaugh make a power of money out of the elephant Romeo? Do you recall VanAmburgh, Herr Driesbach, Prof. Langworthy, and Crockett in the lion’s den?”

“No, doctor,” said the provoking Sam Joseph, “we are all too young to be acquainted with the ancient history of the American menagerie.”

After all heads had chuckled at Sam’s drive at the doctor, the editor of the Billboard remarked:

“What are you getting at, Mr. Colvin?”

“Getting at the drawing power of the menagerie, even a single animal in some instances, and to substantiate my claim that Burly Bluff’s great big business last year came from the menagerie. It was the menagerie that did the trade, nothing else and nobody else. That’s my opinion for what it is worth.”

A great pause came after Colvin’s confession of conviction. After a while, who should come from a corner where he had been sitting with the intention of writing but only as a forced listener? None other than Burly Bluff in person. He did not wait to be seated but, in some heat, delivered himself.

“As you gentlemen seem to know it all, with no two of you being agreed, it might be superfluous for me, an interested party, to express an opinion. But I am going to tell you all, and all the same, that Burly Bluff made a pot of money last season because - because Burly Bluff managed the show. That was the very reason, the sole and only reason, and Burly Bluff was alone responsible for the success.”

Everybody in the sanctum came pretty near not breathing at the boldness of the egotistical statement. The assertive and indignant manager took the center of the room and struck a pose that Sam Joseph declared would do in the ring as a feature for “Ajax Defying the Lightning Rod Agent” or “The Roman Gladiator on the Way to Watertown.” Sam always was up in the classics and at one time was credited in Cincinnati with being the author of the books of Josephus.

As the assembly neither contradicted nor sustained Burly Bluff, he turned on his heels and left the sanctum as mad as a hornet. The editor of the Billboard remarked not but he wrote on a piece of copy paper:

“MORAL: It all depends upon the point of view.”

Footnotes

34. William Donaldson was editor of the Billboard at this time.


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William L. Slout and Circus Historical Society, Inc.