| Bandwagon Discussion Convention Logos Photos Publications Research History Routes Ads-Titles Humor Search Links |
| Bandwagon Discussion Convention Logos Photos Publications Research History Routes Ads-Titles Humor Search Links |
Scroll down for the article you are looking for in this issue. Note: Only some articles are included in this online edition. The Circus Historical Society does not guarantee the accuracy of information contained in the information in these online articles. Information should always be checked with additional sources.
A small man with dark keen eyes, fine regular features, smooth brown hair, slight mustache and closely knit compact figure, evidently a man of the world and at ease with it - so much so that his five and forty years were borne more lightly than by most men at thirty - this was "the man who rides," James Robinson. He was met last night by a reporter of this paper and in response to queries, modestly gave an account of himself:
"I was born in Boston in 1838. When I was turning into my tenth year, I went to New York and there apprenticed myself to John Robinson, dropping my first name Fitzgerald, and taking my employer's name, which I have worn ever since. Right here I may just as well tell you that I am the only Robinson who has been known as a rider, excepting John Robinson or any of his family. I stayed with John Robinson nine years, during which time I received my board, clothes and spending money. Did I earn my money? You can judge of that for yourself. For instance, we put in the winter of 1848-1849 in Florida. It was the first time a circus ever visited that State. We had an eighty foot round top tent and about thirty head of horses. I did at that time eighteen acts each day, nine at each performance. I opened by riding principal pad act. Then I rode two ponies and carried Alex Robinson's son. Alex was John's brother. Then I did the running globe, tumbling, lead in leaping, rode a carrying act with Alex's daughter, vaulted and rode the Indian act. Then I introduced bareback riding. You did not know that I was the original bareback rider did you? Well, it is true. Not only in this country, but also in Europe. In 1856 I left Robinson and went with Spaulding & Rogers who took out the first show that ever travelled by rail. In 1857 I went to Europe. When it was announced that there was an American who rode a horse without a saddle or pad, and turned somersaults while the horse was in motion, they did not believe it and sneered at the idea. "Hi suppose as 'ow the bloody Yankee heats a beef-steak in the hair while 'e's a-doing of it, doesn't "e?" some said. You can be assured my act was a great card and on May 14, 1858, by royal command, I rode in the Alhambra Palace, Leicester Square, London, before Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, and her husband Prince Albert and their children and a suite of about six hundred. The Queen presented me with a handsome douceur.
"In 1850 I went to Germany and rode a year at the Circus Renz.
"In 1860 I went back to London for a year.
"I came back to America with James Nixon and in 1862 I traveled for the last time with Old John Robinson. Then I joined the Thayer & Noyes Show one season and in the fall went to Cuba with Chiarini's Italian Circus. During my stay in Havana in the winter of 1864-1865, the citizens of Havana presented me with the Championship Belt and up to this time no one has ever disputed my right to wear it. I may display it in a public window during our stay in Cincinnati.
"In the spring of 1865 I came back to the States and during the season was with Howe's European Show. In 1867 I went again to Europe with the American Circus. They stayed in Paris during the Exposition."
Here is what Gil Robinson writes about Jimmie Robinson in his book "Old Wagon Show Days" published by the Brockwell Company, in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1925:
"My father's circus was a wonderful school for the development of performers of all kinds. Practically all famous riders of the nineteenth century was at one time or another enrolled under his banner. Many of them were apprentices when they started with him, and received their training under his watchful eyes. James, or as he was better known, Jimmie Robinson, the greatest bareback rider that the world ever produced, won his initial successes under my father's management. He was not related to our family. His real name was James Fitzgerald. He was legally bound to my father, who changed his name for professional reasons. He and James Hernandez, another apprentice and a remarkable rider, had a riding contest in Washington, D. C., in the year of 1857, for the championship of the world. Jimmie Robinson won the title and he held it against all comers until he retired from the sawdust arena. Years afterwards he went to Australia with the Cooper & Bailey's Circus. At the close of the circus he shipped his horses to Marseilles in big crates. The lumber would probably have been thrown away if a stranger had not approached the rider and offered him one hundred dollars for it; this excited Robinson's curiosity as to the value of the wood, and the reason for the liberal offer, and finally the lumber was turned over to him at a price to pay all traveling expenses of the horses and three people from India to France. The wood, which Robinson had regarded with indifference and which was comparatively cheap at the point of embarkation, was solid mahogany.
"One season when Jimmie Robinson had been engaged by Mr. Bailey at a salary of $600 a week to tour Australia, the tour proved so unprofitable that the show was temporarily closed. Robinson insisted on being paid his salary during the lay-off. Mr. Bailey, in an effort to frighten him, declared that if he persisted in his demand, the show would be reorganized and taken to India, where thousands of the natives were dying of the plague.
" 'That's all right, Governor,' said Jimmie. 'You can take the show to India or Hades so far as I am concerned. Just you furnish the transportation and put up the big top and make the ring, and I'll be there prepared to ride as usual.' Bailey was as good as his word. The show went to India and Jimmie was there and rode as usual."
To most people a clown is a clown, take him in whatever guise you will, and the fool in motley, with the cap and bells, differs not a whit from the Punchinello of a pantomime. Yet this merry man of the arena is not a new found acquaintance, by any means, and can boast his descent almost directly from the classical times, having figured, as some assert, in the ancient MIMI of the ATELLANIAN fables. Harlequin and Punchinello, both of whom retain the character of jesters, wags and buffoons, find a place in dramatic history of all Nations, and it is believed existed among the Romans before the time of Plautus, continuing to play their frolics during the middle ages, when the legitimate drama was unknown. Indeed, the images of these grotesque characters have been discovered by antiquarians on Etruscan vases and, among the characters in the earliest of our English plays, the fool frequently occurs. Though the term clown and fool are improperly used as synonymous by these early writers, and the fool denoted, in some of the old plays alluded to, either a natural, as they were then called, or a witty hireling, retained for the purpose of making sport for his employers, a clown was a perfectly distinct character, and one of much greater variety.
Richard Tarlton and many other actors, as far back as the time of Ben Jonson, had distinguished themselves as clowns. In 1723 the pantomime clown began his reign upon the English stage, the circus fool coming many years later. In December of the year mentioned, Rich, the London manager, produced the first regular pantomime at Lincoln's Inn Theatre, entitled "The Necromancer, or, The History of Dr. Faustus," which Doran tells us conjured all the town within the ring of his little theatre, and raised harlequinade above Shakespeare and all other poets. In a divertisement of this description, presented by Mr. Rich several years afterwards, the name Grimaldi appears as Pantaloon and in 1758 this same famous clown relieved the tragedy of RICHARD III as enacted by Mossop, by appearing in comic dances between the arts.
Our modern circus clown is a direct descent of Punch and was brought into being, as one might say, by Old Astley, of London, who died in 1814. Philip Astley was a famous rider who first exhibited equestrian pantomimes in which his son, who survived him for a short time, rode (as it is said) with great grace and agility.
Astley had amphitheatres (famous establishments they were, too,) in London, Dublin and Paris and migrated with his actors, bipeds and quadrupeds from one to the other. Belzoni, the celebrated Egyptian antiquarian, who unearthed many famous tombs at Thebes, and earned great distinction as the discoverer of the entrance to the pyramid, was at one time a clown in Astley's London house.
With Rickett's Circus, which was the first that ever exhibited in the United States, the clown was transplanted to American soil and today is such an institution in our midst that tented exhibitions like Barnum's, Forepaugh's and Robinson's are compelled to have not one, but a dozen or more; and so great is the difference in their skill and the character of their performances that they are classed under almost as many different heads. Four distinct species of clowns are recognized by our showmen, i. e., the Talking Clown, the Silent Clown, the Pantomimic Clown and the Trick Clown.
Of Talking Clowns Dan Rice is undoubtedly the greatest that ever lived, having achieved such fame as to be able to command a salary at one time of $1,000 a week with all expenses paid.
Dan was the best of the so-called Shakespearean jesters and was paraded about the streets in a coach-and-four with a handsomely-bound copy of the great William's works open before him when, had his life depended upon it, he could not have spelled out a single word of the text.
Away back in the 50's when old Van Orden was travelling about the country at the head of a circus, Dan Rice was the possessor of an "educated pig" which he exhibited in a side canvas. Fortunately for Dan, Van Orden's clown, a fellow of no great reputation and so addicted to his cups as to be utterly unreliable, was incapacitated for work by intoxication, and Dan was called upon at short notice to take his place. Van Orden had the brains and Dan the impudence, so between the two, jokes - enough to carry him through the performance - were strung together and to the surprise of everyone made the most remarkable hit with his antics, his reputation increasing day by day until, within a very brief space, he stood at the head of his profession.
Long before Rice's debut, however, great clowns were not wanting and John May, John Gossin, Sam Lathrop, Sam Long, Joe Pentland and Old Dan Gardner reigned supreme. May, Gossin and Long were a peculiar trio, each in turn acting in the capacity of liege lord to the famous Madame Delphine who, in her time, had no fewer than seven husbands. Each of the three poor fellows alluded to died of softening of the brain, some said owing to the poisonous effects of the bismuth with which they whitened their faces, while others insinuate that bad whiskey and a scolding wife proved more baneful than the compound blamed by many as the cause of the great Fox's taking off.
Considering the number of clowns that have died in the asylum some, like poor Fox and May, having to be confined in padded cells and harnessed in straight jackets, Old Gardner of all the early clowns was about the only one that died possessed of anything, and yet his early career was less promising of any, he having first appeared before the public in the character of a female impersonator in a minstrel show and a very poor one at that. However, he was well fixed in after years and lived to be honored and respected by a large family of children some now among the best-known people of Philadelphia.
However, it must be remembered that the salaries of circus performers in those days were nothing as compared to what is paid now.
Gossin, it is said, got but $80 a month and was compelled to assist in the putting together of the show wherever an exhibition was given. "We had no canvassmen even when I began the business," said a well-known rider, John Wilson, in conversation upon the subject the other day, "and the clowns, riders, performers, in fact everybody connected with the show, had to turn out, rain or shine, to put up the canvas, build the ring and look after the horses."
Old man Walcott, Teddy Walcott as he was familiarly known in times gone by, now the business manager of Buffalo Bill's Wild West, was one of the most famous of talking clowns just before the breaking out of the war, and for years he travelled with Spaulding & Rogers' Show, receiving, as a compensation, little more than $30 per week, while at present the most ordinary talking clowns are paid from $75 to $150 per week throughout a long season. Dock Thayer, Jim Meyers, Jerry Reynolds, Pete Conklin and the Pastors, Tony and Billy, each shone resplendent for a time in the sawdust arena, but of the lot Tony is today the only one possessing either reputation or money. Tony Pastor was apprenticed to Old John Nathan, and having proved a failure at everything else, he was put to clowning. His first reputation was made under the management of Jerry Mabie as a singer of comic songs and a few seasons afterwards he stepped from the ring to the stage, since which time his career is known to you.
"Do you know how clowns are made?" asked a famous wearer of the motley of a Commercial Gazette man the other day. "I'll tell you; when a man has proved himself utterly incapable of anything else in the ring; when, he can neither ride nor tumble, do a rope act or swing on a trapeze, they smear his face with bismuth and glycerine, put a striped suit upon his back, and he is a full-fledged clown. Tony Pastor was dumped into the ring after this fashion, and is today a millionaire, simply because as a boy he was too trifling for any other line of business."
Buck Gardner, Nat Austin, Ted Croust and John Lowlow are among the next batch of celebrities, the last-named being the best known jesters today. Lowlow and Old Si of the Atlanta Constitution were boys together, both running away from home when mere lads to join Uncle John Robinson's circus, then exhibiting in the South. Small soon tired of the rough life, however, and returned to his home, and sorrowing parents, while Lowlow journeyed on toward the North and now, at the end of twenty-five years' service in this one show, finds himself owning some most valuable property in the City of Cleveland. Talking clowns like Lowlow and his companions, are fast becoming a thing of the past, however, the silent clown now usurping his place.
Of the eight or nine clowns with the Barnum show, all are of this description, and it is a rule with the management of that concern that as soon as a man opens his mouth, he is handed his salary and dismissed.
The silent clown proper is a sort of a "Lone Fisherman" indeed, and this famous character is said to have been suggested to the author of "Evangeline" by a performance witnessed at the circus. The silent clown is as different as the Humpty Dumpty of the pantomime as is the latter from the Shakespearean jester. He is a quite peculiar fellow, comical both in his make-up and expression of face and usually wanders about the ring in a listless sort of a way, as if naturally unmindful of the presence of other people. This style of business was introduced to our tented shows by the two celebrated European clowns Chadwick and Wheel. Both were large and powerful men and without saying a word would stumble into the ring, pick up a pony, trick mule or even some famous rider or acrobat and carry them off under one arm in spite of their struggles.
Ash, of the Robinson circus, first taught his business by John Wilson, then equestrian manager of the show, is accounted one of the best silent clowns and acted a "Lone Fisherman" almost as laughable as that of the original Harry Hunter.
The Trick clown, common to almost every circus, is another peculiar species and although distinct from all others, may be either of the talking or silent sort. The Trick clown is usually an acrobat disguised in motley who, after floundering about in the ring to the great delight of the rustics, suddenly jumps upon a horse and discovers the fact that he is quite a skillful rider. Among the tumblers he sometimes proves the best, and as a bar performer is frequently hard to surpass. The first of our Trick clowns was the great Frenchman, Oriole, who made his appearance in Paris about 1850 and who, it is claimed, was the first man who ever did a somersault on a horse. George Adams, the pantomimist, before taking to the stage, was famous among trick clowns, having served his apprenticeship under Cooke, the great Englishman. He was "creeked" when quite a boy - that is, he had certain joints in his back so twisted as to render him extremely supple - and it is doubtful whether any clown who ever stepped into the arena could at all compare with him. Coming from a great family of circus performers, Adams proved an exception to the rule of the general worthlessness of clowns as gymnasts or riders and before ever putting white on his face had won for himself an enviable reputation as a rider, bar performer and tumbler.
Of the many pantomime clowns the most celebrated within the remembrance of any of the present generation were undoubtedly the Ravels; indeed it is claimed that the first pantomime ever produced upon the American stage "Jocko, the Brazilian Ape," was with these people as principals. The Ravel Brothers, (Mazetti, Gabriel, Francois and Antoine), each have nothing added to their fame at this day. They were the greatest of all pantomimists and are equally as celebrated in Paris as afterwards in this new-found home. Pantomime in all essentials is the same no matter whether it be French, English or Italian; yet there is, to the acute observer, a difference in clowns, the English or American being just as distinct from the others today as when in 1700, even before the time of Rich, the first crude pantomime was given in London. The Martinettis came over from Paris with the Ravels as "property men" and gradually as one after the other of the famous brothers dropped out of the company assumed the vacancy until in the end "Mazumma, the Night Owl," "The Red Gnome" and the other famous pantomimes were played by them and not by the Ravels. However, the Martinettis never amounted to much, nor did the Leland family who came first after them. Maffit and Bartholomew and others gained some little notoriety in these same pantomimes, but the next great success after the Ravels was that made by George Fox at the Olympic Theatre, New York, in 1867. As Humpty Dumpty he has never had his equal and is admitted by all to have been the funniest clown ever seen upon the stage. Tony Denier and George Adams were the nearest approach to Fox, the last named having fairly won the distinction of being the greatest of living pantomimists with the probable exception of the Hanlons who, however, strictly speaking, do not come under the head of pantomime clowns.
As to salaries, the pantomime clown is the best paid of any, $200 and $300 a week not being considered at all out of the way as a compensation for their labors and the Ravels, Fox, the Hanlons, George Adams and even those less celebrated among them have, in their day, earned ample fortunes.
Probably the largest crowd that ever assembled at Niagara Falls was present there yesterday to witness M. Blondin cross the Niagara River upon his rope carrying a man upon his shoulders. About half-past four o'clock M. Blondin entered the enclosure and proceeded to the end of the rope on the American side. His appearance was a signal for a general cheering which was responded to from the other side of the river. He was dressed as on former occasions, in silk tights,, bare-headed, and had on his feet rough-dressed bear-skin shoes. In a few minutes after his arrival he ascended the rope with his balancing pole and started to cross the river alone.
M. Blondin occupied something over one-half hour crossing, most of the time being spent in his performances on the rope. He remained upon the Canadian side to rest and refresh himself some fifteen or twenty minutes and again appeared upon the rope. This time he had his agent, Mr. Henry Colcord, a man weighing about 136 pounds, upon his back and his balancing pole in his hands. He proceeded down the rope slowly and cautiously as if feeling every step until he was about one hundred feet from the Canadian side, when Mr. Colcord dismounted and stood upon the rope immediately behind M. Blondin.
They here remained to rest about three or four minutes when Mr. Colcord again mounted and M. Blondin proceeded, still walking very slowly and stopping occasionally to balance himself. They stopped five times in crossing and each time Mr. Colcord dismounted and again resumed his position. He had his arms around M. Blondin's neck and his legs rested on the balancing pole. He was in his shirt sleeves and wore a straw hat. About twenty-two minutes were occupied in traveling the first half of the rope and the balance in twenty, making forty-two minutes from bank to bank. In reaching the landing, M. Blondin was much flushed and appeared very much fatigued, while Mr. Colcord was pale but did not betray any signs of fear.
You may not know it, but there are hoodoos in the circus business as well as in other lines of trade. The only difficulty is to be able to know what the hoodoo is and get rid of it. I remember once old John Robinson's circus constantly lost money on the Central States circuit, where two seasons before it had made an unusually successful tour. Old man John couldn't understand it, but finally concluded that it could not be among the members of his staff, neither was it one of the performers, for every one on that side of the circus had been with him the season before, which was one of unequalled prosperity. In perplexity he began to reorganize the other parts of his concern, and new hands were discharged by the wholesale. At last he discovered the hoodoo. It was a side-show lecturer, who always wore an alarmingly red necktie. As soon as the lecturer was discharged the circus prospered.
Phineas T. Barnum one season had a hoodoo that stayed with him until his employer was well-nigh ruined before he was discovered and discharged. In that instance the Jonah was a very clever plate-spinner. The trouble with the hoodoo is that he does not imagine the ill-effects of his mere presence in the circus.
Adam Forepaugh's worst hoodoo was a cross-eyed candy butcher, and his great circus had very bad luck until the vender of sweet-meats was discharged.
John O'Brien's hoodoo was a sweet-faced, soft-spoken lady performer, who brought him mighty bad luck until he released her.
Old Van Amburg made barrels of money and prospered travelling through the country with Scriptural mottoes painted upon his wagons, but all that changed as soon as he employed a peg-legged cook. His ticket-wagon receipts at once fell off amazingly, there was bad luck in the ring, constant desertions from his company, and several valuable animals died.
Now, a red-headed girl or lady in the company is always said to bring luck to the circus. Call it auburn hair, if you prefer, but the redder her hair, especially if she be a performer, the better the luck the little lurid locks will bring. I have had them more than once in my circus, and so know whereof I speak. I recall one in particular, Mlle. Germaine de Greville, otherwise Eliza Butcher, of Ohio. When she joined my company, business at once began to boom and continued to boom throughout the several seasons she was in my employ. I presented her with a magnificent well-trained white horse, and her hair was so dangerously red that, when performing upon her snowy charger, she looked like a rocket flashing around the ring. My success while she was with my circus was really wonderful and mystified the most experienced circus proprietors of the country. I knew one of the secrets of that success, but kept silent. Eliza knew that she was appreciated by her employer, and, upon completing her turn in the ring, was often presented with a magnificent bouquet of flowers. But, despite my thoughtfulness, I at last lost little 'Lize. She went and got married and to the homeliest man that ever drew breath. When her boy twins were born she split my name in two and gave each one half.
Circus Scrap Book, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Jan), 1929, p. 36.
Ringmaster and clown come into the ring. The ringmaster says "Ladies and gentlemen, I take pleasure in announcing the appearance of Madamoiselle La Rosa, the world's most accomplished equestrienne, in her sensational bareback act". A magnificent horse is then led in. Suddenly an attendant rushes in from the pad-room, whispers something to the ringmaster which shocks him. Turning to the audience the latter announces, "I am sorry, ladies and gentlemen, to be obliged to announce that Madamoiselle La Rosa has been taken ill and will not be able to appear tonight." Then a seedily-dressed man arises from a seat among the spectators. He seems to be under the influence of liquor. He shouts: "This show is a fake. I come here to see that lady ride, and I won't be humbugged." With this he starts for the ring. All the while he carries on a running conversation with the ringmaster. "You seem so smart," says the ringmaster, "I suppose you think you can ride?" "You bet I can," the stranger replies and starts for the horse. The ringmaster tries to restrain him, saying: "That horse is dangerous; I warn you that you will be hurt." But the man ignores the warning. He takes off his coat and goes through the business of clumsily mounting. At last, after an effort, he reaches the horse's back, pulls a bottle from his pocket, takes a drink and then makes believe he has difficulty in riding. Then the man's clothes start to fall away from him. In a moment he stands revealed, clad in tights and spangles. He proves to be a graceful and accomplished rider.
The circus has become a highly organized business machine that sells amusement and instruction upon a big scale. Formerly it was a speculative enterprise, and rather more uncertain than most gambles. In the old days, the owner was primarily a showman. He eliminated the business idea as much as possible, hiring men to do this end of the work for him. Nowadays the business idea dominates the circus, and the showman is subordinated to the financier.
Probably the greatest show man that ever lived was P. T. Barnum, and he was a fairly good business man - for a showman. But when he tried to fight the business idea, introduced into the circus world by James Anthony Bailey, he found it more powerful than the show idea. Whereupon Barnum proved his wisdom by joining forces with Bailey; and the two, forming a combination that made the perfect circus machine, became supreme in their world.
Now it is a mooted point whether Barnum or Lincoln made the epigram about fooling all of the people part of the time, and part of the people all of the time; at any rate, Barnum lived up to it. There was much more morality in the advertisements of the Barnum show than in the show itself. Bailey's idea, on the other hand, was not to fool the people at all, but to make the circus clean, honest, above reproach inside and out. Anything that was not straight was abhorrent to him personally and, furthermore, he believed straight things would pay better in the long run.
Until Bailey became a power in the circus, graft was one of its chief sources of income, although it was never mentioned under that name. It was called "privileges." In the old days the circus sold the gambling privileges, as it did the candy privilege, the concert privilege, the side-show privilege and ever so many others. The late Adam Forepaugh was very ingenious in evolving graft games. Once upon a time some of his subordinates protested against a blind woman who was begging regularly at the main entrance. Forepaugh said he hadn't the heart to drive away the poor afflicted creature. It transpired that she paid him $20 a week for the privilege of begging.
As a rule, too, all of the privileges were run dishonestly. Bailey, however, had secured his first real start as an owner of legitimate privileges, and he found he could run them honestly and make money. When he rose to ownership, he abolished rental or sale of privileges, concentrating everything under his own control. He made a circus conform to our recognized business laws; he standardized and systematized it.
The function of business is to give security, to insure, in so far as is possible, certain profits. To accomplish this, business attempts to eliminate, to the greatest extent practicable, the element of risk, which may mean huge losses or enormous profits. Under the old regime a circus run by a showman often made huge profits one season, only to collapse in the next. The showman, always an outrageous optimist, forever trusted to chance. He never could estimate what might happen. But Bailey always knew how much he could lose and how much he could make. He was always prepared for any emergency that confronted him.
While Bailey was revolutionizing the circus, six brothers from Baraboo, Wisconsin, were making their way upward in the show world. They started on nothing, the older brothers, gradually drawing in the younger as they grew stronger. They realized the wisdom of Bailey's business idea, and they had the same personal principles.
Each brother mastered the details of the circus business, then each specialized in some one department. Their motto was that of the Three Musketeers: "One for all and all for one." Today the five Ringling Brothers (one died about a year ago) dominate the circus field in America, even more completely than did Barnum and Bailey. They own the Barnum and Bailey show, the Ringling Brothers show and the Forepaugh and Sells show, the three largest in the country.
The two biggest shows nearly alike as possible, each have eighty-nine cars. The Forepaugh and Sells show has fifty-five cars. Their nearest rival, the Hagenbeck and Wallace show, has thirty-five cars. Gollmar Brothers show with thirty cars and the Cole Brothers with twenty cars, round out the list of the more important circuses. Of course there are many smaller ones.
Each of the two biggest circuses represents a cost of about $3,000,000, although it is doubtful whether either of them could be duplicated for that sum.
Suppose we go a little way into the details of the cost: in the first place a big circus has to have a pretty big manufacturing plant, maintained in its winter quarters. All the big circuses build their own flat cars. Because they do not conform to the standard in size and construction, it is cheaper for the circus to build them than to go to the big car manufactories. Nevertheless the railroad transportation equipment averaging sixty-three flat cars, fourteen Pullmans, ten coaches, two private cars, represents an investment of nearly half a million dollars. Then taking the figures of the two largest shows - there are sixty-two chariots, band wagons and floats which range in cost from $9,000 for the biggest one drawn by forty horses, down to $2,000. There are one hundred and forty-two cages which cost, exclusive of decoration, $1,500 each. The big circuses do all of their own decorating, for the same reason that they build their own cars - it is cheaper in the long run. In addition to these show vehicles, there are the baggage wagons and blacksmith wagon, the cook wagon and many others, bringing up the total of all of this equipment to about $400,000.
The wardrobe of a big circus nowadays is very expensive. In addition to the costumes for the people - and nearly a thousand take part in the parade, each having a costume or a uniform that the show provides - there are the gorgeous trappings for the horses, elephants and camels, the banners and flags. The big show must not save a penny at the sacrifice of gorgeousness and the materials must all be of the best, because of the wear and tear. They must last two seasons, the fine ones this season becoming the rainy-day ones next. Therefore, the annual outlay for sartorial splendors is about $150,000, and this does not include the ring costumes, which the performers must themselves supply.
Obviously, circus harness, too, because of its elaborateness and quality, is very expensive and there is an enormous quantity of it The total runs over $100,000.
The biggest shows carry between 650 and 700 horses and ponies. The 400 baggage horses cost about $350 each, and about a hundred of them have to be replaced each year. Of the 60 bareback horses, perhaps one-third are owned by the performers themselves, and there is no estimating the value of a lot of trained bareback animals. The total value of the 42 special parade animals, 30 Arabian stallions, 40 thorough-breds and jumpers, 28 trick horses and 50 ponies, with the baggage horses, is about $400,000.
As for the menageries, those of the Barnum and Bailey and the Ringling shows, are valued at about $750,000 each. But the estimate in different circuses and at different times varies widely - from a half million dollars to twice that sum. Plainly, a thoroughly acclimated wild animal that takes kindly to circus life is worth two or three times as much as a green one that may die in a few days or weeks. Then in the case of the most expensive animals, like the rhino, the fact that three or four are on the European market may cause the price to drop from $10,000 to $5,000. The rhino is a mighty delicate animal, so far as life is concerned, however little he may look it. The hippopotamus, equally valuable, but harder to secure, has much more vigor in captivity. Then there is the giraffe, one of the hardest animals to keep alive with a circus or anywhere in captivity, because even when they don't succumb to disease, the creatures insist on breaking those long necks - which is not, after all, remarkable. There are very few giraffes in captivity, but because of their high mortality a circus will seldom pay more than $7,000 for one. Most circus owners prefer to accept the dictum of the man who saw the long-necked creature for the first time: "There ain't no such animal." With the Barnum and Bailey show is a pair that have travelled for eight years, which gives them an enormous circus value. In addition, they have a baby, the second one born in captivity, and the only one that ever lived. Naturally these animals are beyond price.
The law of supply and demand regulates the price of green elephants, and it varies accordingly. Then, too, the size and temper have much to do with their value, and of course the trained ones command about twice as much as the others. Green elephants bring from $1,000 to $5,000 under normal conditions.
Another animal whose value is difficult to appraise is the chimpanzee. A green one may sell for from $300 to four times that amount, while an acclimated one may be worth $2,500. A highly trained chimpanzee is held at the most absurd price when he becomes a real performer. For few of them are susceptible of "advanced education," and all of them are delicate creatures, likely to succumb to the slightest cold. But the big monkey folk are very valuable to the circus.
For other equipment: there are no fewer than 19 tents with the big shows, covering some 20 acres of ground. They do not cost so very much in themselves, but when one adds poles, cordage, seats - the main tent seats 15,000 people - mechanical stake-drivers, lighting apparatus, and all the rest, the total cost amounts to more than $100,000.
If you should add these figures, you would find the total considerably short of $3,000,000. For one thing, all of the investment for the winter quarters has not been included - the grazing land, the exercising arenas, the living places for employees, and scores of other things, which add, perhaps, $200,000. Furthermore, the traveling mechanical equipment for the show carries a paint shop, a harness shop, a dressmaking establishment, and so on; and these with other offshoots, represents an investment of about $100,000.
There is a mighty important item of half a million that is invested in the bank, a surplus that is really an emergency fund, without which no big circus could be sure of existing through a season. Part of it is deposited in New York, part in Chicago and part in St. Louis. It is at all times subject to a telegraph order to forward actual cash. The circus works on a cash basis always when it is on the road; about the only bills paid by check are the printing bills. In the old days the showman took all kinds of chances. But the modern circus simply insures itself against loss, and carries the insurance itself, just as many business concerns carry their own fire insurance. For there is always danger of a railroad wreck or a fire that may destroy half the show; or there may be a prolonged season of bad business, due to bad weather. One year when Mr. Bailey owned the Forepaugh show, at the beginning of the season it had seven successive weeks of heavy rain. If he had not had an emergency fund to draw upon, the show would have been swamped, for the total losses for the first two months were nearly a quarter of a million. But the owner was prepared for the unprecedented, and the show finished the season with a profit.
So much for the investment. The operating expenses begin with the wintering of the circus, apart from all repairs. For convenience sake, the car is made the unit. The twenty weeks that the show spends in winter quarters represent an expenditure of more than a thousand dollars for each car. So the big shows start on the road with a running expense deficit of about $90,000. Then, on the road, there is a cost of about $85 a day for each car; the unit charge is larger for the smaller shows, amounting to upward of $100 a car. Therefore, when the big show is traveling, it must pay out from $7,500 to $8,000 a day for seven days a week, while it has an income only six days in the week.
The largest single item of expense is the salary list, which amounts to $2,800 a day - a little less than $2.80 a day for each of the thousand employees, which shows that the average income of circus workers is very moderate, although it should be remembered that they get also board and lodging. The cost of food supplies for man and beast is about $1,500 daily, and, curiously enough, it is about equally divided between them, the individual cost of each meal being twenty-five cents, which amounts to $750 a day for the employees.
The salary list of the four hundred performers, exclusive of the workers, amounts to about a thousand dollars a day, on an average, although it varies as acts are changed. The most highly paid acts are the "thrillers" which the press agent announces as "death defying" - and there is no exaggeration. The famous "Dip of Death" stunt, in which a young woman tobogganed on a property automobile that turned a somersault, commanded a thousand dollars a week, of which the young woman who risked health and life received $125 a week, while the remainder went to the owner of the act.
It is interesting to note that the danger of riding down that chute and making a complete revolution in the air, had no terrors for ever so many young women. During the two years this "thriller" was featured, applications for the job averaged ten a week throughout the season, and they were mostly from well-to-do young women who were not particular about the salary.
The "Dip of Death" was a valuable feature of the show because of its advertising value, and it made the kind of sensation that has a powerful appeal, especially to people whose lives are such that they do not often have an opportunity to enjoy real excitement. And that was the only reason it was retained. For the real circus folks themselves, from the owners to the grooms, and especially the performers, despised the "act" because its appeal was wholly in its danger, and the question of skill did not enter at all. Anybody could be strapped to the seat and make the journey successfully - unless the machine broke down.
But when the "thriller" requires personal skill and strength, then the circus people admire, no matter how foolhardy it may be. That's why "Desperado," in the Barnum and Bailey show, who dives head foremost from the top of the arena, onto an inclined plane, is considered a real performer. It takes tremendous nerve and nice skill to make that leap, for the slightest variation means death. "Desperado" gets $600 a week for two performances a day, and the other performers consider it a fair salary.
The aerial and the acrobatic acts are given mostly by troupes, or "families," of from four to ten; and the salaries range from $75 to $800 a week for the act.
Time was when the principal bareback rider was the highest-priced performer in a circus; but that is all changed now. Each year one or two of the old time stars appear when the circus shows in New York, and always the same conversation is repeated again and again.
The old star wags his head sadly, and remarks that bareback riding has gone to the dogs.
"But the modern riders do all of the tricks you used to do, including the somersault," someone protests.
"Yes, they do the tricks; but how do they do them? There is no finish, no grace, no style. The art of bareback riding is lost. Why, we used to stand before a mirror for an hour at a time practicing kissing our fingers to the audience and almost every movement received as much attention."
It is true. There are no riders like the handsome James Robinson and ugly Charles Fish, the most graceful human beings I ever saw on a horse. The rush of the modern arena performance, with its many acts going on at once, and all timed to the minute, has done away with artistic riding.
No longer, therefore, do the riders get big salaries. Few receive more than $125.00 a week, even when they furnish their own horses.
James Robinson's salary of $500.00 a week in gold - equal to twice that much in the purchasing value of today - is perpetuated in a story at James A. Bailey's expense. Bailey took his circus to Australia, with Robinson as one of the great features. It happened that there was talk of an epidemic in the territory where the show was booked; and Robinson, who knew no fear in the circus ring, was terror-stricken by the thought of disease. Also Mr. Bailey saw that Robinson was not a big feature in Australia so the showman suggested to the rider the possible danger, with the delicate intimation that possibly he would rather remain behind.
"Mr. Bailey," said Robinson, after a moment's thought, "if you pitch your tents in hell, I'll ride there as long as you pay me $500 a week."
The clowns alone are a very expensive feature or the big show. The Barnum and Bailey and the Ringling shows each carry fifty fun-makers, and they get from $35 to $150 a week. They are highly valuable, but still $75,000 a season, not counting their living, seems a lot of money to spend on them.
Advertising expenses - the second largest item - reach a total of $1,700 a day. The "paper," which means all advertising matter, from wondrous lithographs that make the countryside brilliant, if not beautiful, to the handbills, costs $800 a day. Newspaper advertising averages $300 a day; and the balance is expended in operating the advance cars and in paying the charges of posting.
In the old days circus advertising campaigns, like political campaigns, were long drawn out. Nowadays both are shortened and kept at a high tension. The circus advertising begins just three weeks in advance of the circus. The whole countryside within a radius of twenty miles - that is about the maximum distance people will drive - and the railroad points within a radius of fifty miles are plastered with lithographs. The general idea is to arrange the route of a circus so that its average jump will be about a hundred miles.
Transportation charges vary from $300 to $1,500 a day, but the average is little above the minimum, because of the long stops in cities. Two weeks in Chicago, a week in Philadelphia, a week in Boston keep the average down. In a whole season, by the way, the show will lose not more than one day in traveling, Sundays excepted.
There are many small expenses connected with a circus that the outside world never hears about. For instance, the legal charges amount to $75 a day on the road. This includes the salary of a high-priced lawyer, who always travels with the circus and is the hardest worked man with it, next to the bandsmen and the ticket sellers. If a small boy is kicked by a horse; if there is a dispute over a feed bill; if grafting officials try to cause trouble, the lawyer is called upon to make settlement.
Then there is a physician to look after the employees and to see that the strictest sanitary laws are obeyed. A drug wagon and a chemist supplement him. The work people pay nothing, but the performers must pay for the physicians themselves. You see, the hazard of the act is a factor in determining the salary, and the performer takes all the risks. There is a veterinary, with two assistants, who has a pretty big drug store of his own. It takes a lot of work to look after all the many kinds of animals, and the vets don't loaf much. Law and medicine together cost the circus a deal more than $100 a day.
License and ground rent are varying quantities. Some wise communities provide both for nothing. Others, especially in the South, demand as much as $1,500 a day for the license alone, upon the theory that the circus takes a great deal of money away from the community. This is one of the most firmly established of fallacies. Instead of being a drain, a circus is, as a matter of fact, usually a distinct asset to a community where it exhibits. It not only leaves a very considerable part of its receipts behind, but it brings to the exhibition place thousands of people who spend money there, even if the stores on Main street are deserted during the parade.
The circus begins to spend money in a town three weeks before it appears there. The advance men - 125 of them, with the big shows - have to be boarded. There are livery bills and bill-posting privileges. The men make personal expenditures, and the newspaper advertising mounts up. Then, when the show arrives, there are the food supplies, the transportation charges, the license and ground rent. And the personal expenditures of the circus folk average nearly a thousand dollars a day, although, of course, the larger cities benefit most from these.
Also, it should be remembered that the circus is essentially the poor man's show, viewed from the standpoint of the cost to him. It is almost impossible for an individual to spend more than $1.50 on himself. The highest priced seat costs a dollar. The concert and the side-show each cost ten cents. It takes capacity and greater courage for one person to consume more than thirty cents worth of peanuts and pink lemonade.
While the expenses of the circus are highly varied, it has but two sources of income - the sale of tickets and of refreshments. It is a curious fact that the side-show and the refreshments, which cost very little to install and very little to operate - the total number of employees involved being not a tenth of the whole - yield nearly half of the net profits of the modern big circus. The side-show, the first of the exhibition tents to go up and the last to come down, makes, net, from $400 to $500 a day under normal conditions, while the candy, peanuts and lemonade yield a profit of about $300. When the circus management can make the main show equal the profit of these two "by-products," it is content, because its energy is directed toward insuring a certain ten per cent on the investment, which places it on a par with most commercial enterprises. Some especially good years may show a profit of $500,000, but that is only 16%, a not unusual return upon far more conventional business enterprises in which there appears to be far less risk. But the truth, is that the circus risk isn't so great as it seems.
The big circus men know they have a show that people are eager to pay money to see, if they have the money and the time. And the latest, and perhaps the most effective, business development is the system by which the show is taken to places where there is money. This is called "routeing" the show.
In the old days it was decided in what territory the show should travel - east, west, north, south - and then it was booked straight through that region, with careful consideration for the jumps, that is, the distance between the towns where it exhibited. Then the route was blindly followed - very often until the show "went bust." Nowadays a big circus is never booked more than six weeks in advance, and so perfect is its organization that the route can be changed four weeks in advance without serious loss. Indeed, the secret of the financial success of the modern circus lies largely in its ability to move swiftly to the communities that have money.
Crops and the weather are the foremost factors in determining the route of the circus. And the enterprising gentleman bent upon cornering the products of the field studies crop and market condition no more closely than does the "routeing" expert. He supplements government reports on crops with those made by his own special scouts; and he knows as much about weather as it is given to us poor mortals to know. By the way, the circus doesn't always object to rain - that is, a little of it. A nice, quiet, steady rain will often largely increase receipts, because the farmer can't work in the fields and he is glad of an excuse to go to the circus.
If crops are big everywhere, the problem of determining the route is easy. All that has to be considered is the time of showing. The circus that doesn't have regard for the farmers' busy season is courting disaster. It may do well one season, but the farmer never forgives a circus that shows in harvest time or when he needs his men most. Of course, the best season is after the harvest, and the big shows follow it from the south to the north. The next best time is before harvest that promises bountifully.
This question of time is highly important. For years it was the custom of the circus to show in New England in the autumn, and then New England was a notoriously bad territory, no matter how prosperous the business conditions. And there didn't seem to be any good reason for it.
Finally an able circus psychologist tackled the problem, attacking it from many sides, only to be baffled. Like most problems that seem insolvable, the difficulty was in its absurd simplicity. Thinking he had perhaps struck the solution, the circus expert advised a spring tour, but the suggestion met with small encouragement. The experiment was made, however, and the circus reaped large profits. Nowadays New England is fine circus territory, because it is always visited in the spring.
The explanation? It's very elementary: Factory employees, who have exhausted their resources, which mean capacity for enjoyment as well as money, on the many summer parks with circus features, and other outdoor amusements, haven't much interest in a circus that comes along in the autumn. On the other hand, a circus that exhibits before the summer parks open, finds the workers hungry for that form of amusement.
Of course, a circus has small use for a place where a strike is in progress; and a street car strike is worst of all. For instance, this year the Barnum and Bailey show came near cutting out Philadelphia from its itinerary because of the street car troubles there.
Always the rule with the circus is to follow prosperity, and that is why it always appears in communities in their prosperous years. Drouth or rust may keep the big show out of Minnesota and the Dakotas; a cyclone may make it skip Kansas; or the boll weevil may drive it away from Texas, which, despite the high license fee - $1,500 a day in Houston - is the richest territory of all in prosperous years, after the cotton is picked.
For the handling of all its money, the circus has, in the ticket wagon, a private traveling bank of its own. There are really two ticket wagons, one for reserved seats, and another - the main one - where the regular admissions are sold. Through this street wagon, with its two big safes, passes all the money the circus takes in and all it pays out. It comes in very rapidly at times, for the modern ticket man is marvelously expert, making the old-time "lightning ticket-sellers" look like amateurs. Bookkeeper De Wolfe, with the Barnum and Bailey show, has a record of selling 3,000 tickets in an hour - fifty tickets in sixty seconds. In the grafting days the ticket-sellers' job was worth thousands of dollars a season. Nowadays there is no grafting at all, and so expert are the sellers that, in a whole season, the difference between money and tickets will be less than a hundred dollars, and that is as likely to be against the ticket-sellers as in their favor.
Over each ticket window is a rack, divided into compartments holding a hundred tickets each. The seller takes about ten tickets at a time in one hand - the whole ones on one side, the half ones on the other - and makes change with his free hand. The silver that comes in he sweeps into a drawer, while the paper money - which the ticket man abominates - is swept into baskets or to the floor.
As soon as the rush is over, all the windows save one are closed, and the men begin to count the money, the small silver being sealed in rolls, the silver dollars placed in canvas bags containing five hundred each, and the bills arranged in packages.
Very soon after the sale is ended, the treasurer begins paying out money, all the local bills being settled in the afternoon, while the assistants continue counting not only their own receipts but the money taken in by the reserved seat wagon, the side-show, and the privileges, if there is time. But usually there is not, and the final counting up and settling are not finished until the next morning. Then, unless salaries - which are paid weekly - are to be considered, the surplus is placed in a buggy and taken either to a bank or to an express office, according to the distance it has to go to the banking center. For instance, from all points east of Pittsburgh it is cheaper to ship the actual cash by express than it is to buy exchange on New York, which costs about a dollar a thousand, on an average.
In the ticket wagon, as in every other department of the circus, it is perfect system that enables the force to get through the day's business. The organization of these huge amusement enterprises has, indeed, become so highly perfected that it is practically automatic.
CHS webmaster J. Griffin, last modified May 2006.
