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It was a boyish prank that caused the death by a rifle shot at Chepatchet, R. I., July 31, 1822, of the Learned Elephant, Little Bet, one of the first of the female pachyderms to be exhibited in this country. It was the custom at each exhibition for the lecturer accompanying the beast to describe its unusual characteristics and to particularly emphasize the thickness of her hide.
"It cannot be pierced by a bullet," he declared, "and it is therefore practically impossible to kill the beast." This statement was a challenge which youth could not pass by. Five boys who heard it determined to learn how near truth it was. After the day's exhibition, they lay in wait with a rifle in the dark behind an elm tree. When the elephant approached the spot, one of them fired upon her. The bullet entered a vulnerable spot. Little Bet moved a short distance and fell over dead. The bullet had penetrated an eye and pierced the brain.
The Learned Elephant was the property of Titus, Crane, and Company. Just when she arrived in America and where, she landed is uncertain. She may be the elephant referred to as having been exhibited in 1811 in Baltimore. It may have been that she landed at that port. This is however mere speculation. In September of that year, a female elephant was exhibited in Gettysburg, Pa., and its owners claimed she was the only elephant in America.
The advertisement is worded similarly to that of the elephant killed in Rhode Island. At Gettysburg the elephant was described as "not only the largest and most sagacious animal in the world, but from the peculiar manner in which it takes its food and drink of every kind with its trunk it is acknowledged to be the greatest natural curiosity ever offered to the public. She will lay down and get up at command. She will draw the cork from a bottle and with her trunk will manage it in such way as to drink its contents. She is eleven years old and measures upward of fifteen feet from the end of her trunk to that of her tail, 10 feet round the body and upward of eight feet high. Perhaps the present generation may never have an opportunity of seeing an elephant again, as this is the only one in America and perhaps its last visit to these parts."
Apparently the same elephant was exhibited at 324 Broadway, New York City, from June 4 to 13, 1812, when she was advertised in the Columbian as the only elephant in America.
Six years later, March 30 and 31, 1818, the female elephant was exhibited in Brooklyn; April 3, in Flatbush and April 4, Jamaica, N. Y. The catch words "Now or Never" over the cut of the elephant in the advertisements in the newspapers indicate that this is the same animal that was also exhibited in York, Pa., July 24 and 25 at Shultz's tavern, in Main street. At the latter place she was still advertised as 11 years old. Her measurements were given as "upwards of 18 feet from the end of her trunk to that of her tail; 10 feet, six inches round the body; upwards of seven feet high and weighs more than 4,000 pounds." It will be observed that since her appearance in Gettysburg this elephant had grown three feet longer, six inches more around the body, but if you are to believe the advertisement had lost a foot in height being now only seven feet.
The place for the exhibition of the Learned Elephant at Chepatchet was on the grounds near an inn conducted by Cyrus Cooke. There on that July day of 1822, it was viewed by many persons who came from near and far to speculate on the great curiosity. The exhibition opened at 9 o'clock in the morning and continued until 5 in the evening. Adults paid an admission fee of 12 1/2 cents, while children were admitted for half that sum. Many of the audience mounted the elephant's back by means of her extended right foot, which measured three feet, two inches round. Others were satisfied with a view of the animal, which would "lie down, sit up and rise at command, bow and whistle at request, answer to the call of its keeper, take from the floor a small piece of money with its trunk and return it to the keeper, draw a cork from a filled bottle and drink the contents and then present the empty bottle and the cork to the keeper."
The lecture by the keeper during these exhibitions was always followd by the audience with much interest. He described the elephant as being the largest animal brought to America.
"From the peculiar manner in which the elephant takes her food and drink of every kind with her trunk.' 'he said, "she is acknowledged to be the greatest natural curiosity ever offered to the public." After describing a number of her characteristics, he enlarged upon the thickness and texture of the elephant's hide, which he declared was such that a bullet would not pierce it. "It is therefore practically impossible to kill the beast," he said in concluding his remarks.
This statement made an impression upon five boys in the audience, for they had never heard of an animal that could not be killed by a bullet. They could not understand why the elephant should be different. Just what the elephant would do, if hit by a bullet, they were curious to know. One of them suggested they find out and all were agreed.
At the conclusion of the day's exhibition, the elephant and her keeper prepared for the journey to the next town, which it was the custom to make at night in order to arrive by dawn. About midnight, the little party got under way. A wooden bridge spanned the Chepatchet river, which it was necessary to cross. There was an old grist mill at the northern end of the bridge. In front of the mill stood an ancient elm tree. The tree was so close to the building that its trunk touched the platform used for loading and unloading grain. As the elephant reached the southern end of the bridge she moved with caution as she entrusted her nearly 5,000 pounds weight to its wooden beams. Then satisfied, she took another step forward. At the same time, there was a shot from behind the elm tree. The elephant halted, faltered and toppled over. The keeper hurried over to her to see what was the matter. All efforts to get her to her feet failed. Little Bet was dead. She had been shot, the bullet piercing the brain through the small bead-like eye.
The cause of the elephant's death was soon discovered and a search instituted for those responsible for the tragedy. The boys were apprehended behind the elm, near the gristmill, they admitted their offense and said they had been prompted to the deed by the statement of the lecturer that the elephant's hide could not be penetrated by a bullet. Hiding behind the elm, they fired the fatal shot, they said, just as the elephant hesitated at the entrance to the bridge. They did not intend to kill her. It was by ere chance that the bullet hit an eye.
Of course a suit for damages for the loss of the elephant was threatened by the owners. All five boys having taken part in planning and executing the attack were deemed equally guilty. The amount of damage done was eventually fixed at $1,500 and each of the boys agreed to pay his pro rata share or $300. Complete payment was not made until four years after the elephant was killed. Gerald Crane and Lewis B. Titus then signed a receipt for Crane, June and Company "for all damages we have sustained in consequence of killing and destroying the Ellephant called the Little Bet." This document was made a matter of record. It was a release "for all claim of damage we have against them for the killing said Ellephant. And we further agree for ourselves and other owners not to appear in the prosecution on any complaint that may be preferred against them before any grand jury in the county of Providence or other persons concerned in killing said Ellephant."
And so the case was settled. The boys were fortunate at that. Although their curiosity had cost each of them $300, the price of $1,500 for the elephant was extremely low. But perhaps the price was based upon the ability of the boys to pay, upon the principle that half a loaf is better than none. The owners, too, may have feared if their case went before a jury they would not get a favorable verdict because their lecturer had told the audience, including the five boys, that it is practically impossible to kill the elephant, because its hide is so thick a bullet will not pierce it.
The American circus patron of today and yesterday, connects the word clown with a man in grotesque costume, doing some unique comedy stunt on the hippodrome track of the modern three ring circus. The veteran who remembers the one ring wagon show of sixty years ago, will tell you how Johnny Patterson, the celebrated Irish clown, would stand on the ring-bank and sing "A Flower from My Angel Mother's Grave" or "Never Take the Horeshoe from the Door;" how John Lowlow would sing and talk to the scores of friends in the Southland, where he and the John Robinson circus were home-folks. The whispered secrets into the listening ear of that wonderful blind horse "Excelsior," by Dan Rice the excentric circus owner, whose clown specialties made him one of America's most noted clowns.
But the outstanding records on the pages of clown history is not confined exclusively to the sawdust ring of the circus top. Let us refer back to the successes of Pantomime and Extravaganza of Grandfather's hazy recollections, where there is pages of praise and publicity for famous clowns who were the stars of popular productions. Perhaps the most remarkable success of a featured clown in a pantomime, was that of Geo. L. Fox in "Humpty Dumpty," at the old Olympic Theater, 618 Broadway, New York, where it had the prodigious run of 600 nights. Fox was the ideal Grimaldi of the era in which he was a public entertainer. It was said of him, that when he died he took pantomime to the grave with him. In the two years of continuous throngs gathered nightly at The Olympic, the magnetic personality of Geo. L. Fox, his fund of ludicrous incidents, absurd adventures, magical tricks and transformations, was a combination of furious rollicking fun which only the nature gifted clown could create and present.
An original official programme of the Fox Humpty Dumpty, near the close of the Olympic 600 night run, is the interesting authentic evidence of a star and supporting company of such competent artists, that it is easy to understand why New York gave its unstinted endorsement to one amusement attraction for such a long period. Geo. L. Fox and twenty-seven recognized experienced members of the profession took the character parts in the lengthy programme of changing scenes, novelties and startling transformations in the six parts of act 1. The character dance of "Tommy Tucker" and "Little Goody Two Shoes," by G. Winter Ravel and Miss Louise Boshell, and their "Harlequin" and "Columbine," along with Geo. L. Fox as "Clown," and C. K. Fox as "Pantaloons" in the grand transformation of characters in scene 3, were specialties so full of action and humor that no audience could resist the desire to give lavish applause.
The second act, listed as Humpty's Kaleidoscope, was an opportunity for presenting five specialty acts by artists of international reputation. M'lle Lucia and Orrin Brothers' "Grand Triple Parterre" was an "Olympian and Calisthenical Exposition of Grace and Dexterity;" in reality a graceful exhibition of acrobatic feats. Edward Charles Dunbar, the English Comedian, did his Milanese minstrel specialties. Miss Louise Boshell, the "Wire Volante" gave a truly marvelous performance. The famous "Swiss Warbler," Mons. Deverchere excited admiration with his vocalisms and "Los Dos Payosos," the Orrin Bros, extraordinary pirauettes and somersaults from shoulder to shoulder closed the act. Act 3 was seven scenes of hilarious antics concluding the Humpty Dumpty at Home with a Happy Denoument.
With all of that public endorsement in which he was acknowledged hero of the stage of Momus, Fox's career was not a particularly happy one. He aspired to legitimate drama was indeed a talented actor, and in Hamlet felt that his ambition should be rewarded; but the public would not take him seriously. In his clown comicalities and wonderful pantomime creations, there was the sunshine of joy which drove away the clouds of dull care; laughter, to the masses, was better than tears.
Other noted clowns who profited from the production of pantomime specialties during the days of Geo. L. Fox's successes, were James S. Maffett, Robert Butler, Robert Fraser, and Tony Denier. Maffitt and Bartholomew as a team, produced the pantomime, "Hickety Pickety, My Black Hen." Frank Collins, of the well-known team of Collins Brothers, who were popular favorites in the variety theaters and big minstrel shows during the 60s and 70s, made his start as a professional under Geo. L. Fox at the old Bowery Theater in 1864, with Patsy Shay as his partner. With the prestige gained from an engagement at Fox's Bowery house, Frank Collins climbed the ladder of variety popularity, with Master Martin, Dan Waldron, and Billy Cronin in succession as partners; Cronin and Collins as a team, played together at Barnum's Museum, Spring and Broadway, until the fire; then they went to Tony Pastors where they worked under the name of "The Original Bowery Boys."
Mrs. Annie Yeaman's whose reputation as an actress of unusual ability is of record, was apprenticed to Rowe's American Circus in Australia. After appearing in the great spectacles "Cinderella," "The Black Crook" and "Ticket of Leave Man," she spent two years in Mrs. F. B. Conway's Stock Co., in Brooklyn, where her specialties attracted the attention of Geo. L. Fox who engaged her for the "Humpty Dumpty" caste in which her daughter Jennie also appeared.
There were many who entertained as pantomimists when spectacular productions were popular. Of course the long run of Fox's Humpty Dumpty series made it one of the best remembered. The Hanlons with "Fantasma" and "Superba" amazed and pleased countless thousands with the wonderful tricks of their pantomimes, The Kiralfis were none the less popular. The "Black Crook," Charlie Yale's "Devils Auction" and other big productions in that class, were made tensely interesting by the rapid fire absurdities and transformations of experienced clowns, whose training had been under the masters of earlier pantomime successes. In many of them could be seen traces of Geo. L. Fox methods, and magical tricks that were reminders of his work as the Mimic Prince and King of Clowns.
The Herald is rapidly growing into being justly esteemed as an honest, open and fearless arbiter and counsellor on all questions private or public. Most of these appeals, being of a private nature, do not find their way into print but we take occasion to publish the following communication, being of public interest and importance to seekers of amusement, from G. D. Williams, of St. Albans, Vt. It touches an alleged sharp practice by Forepaugh's Circus. Our correspondent says:
Will you please tell us through the Herald whether the following is getting money under false pretences. Forepaugh's Circus was here yesterday. He advertised "Doors open at one and seven P. M. Performance to commence at two and eight o'clock P. M." At one o'clock tickets were offered for sale and sold at three different stands on the ground - but the tickets were 60 cents each instead of 50 cents, the advertised prices, but the general ticket office was not opened until twenty minutes past one. Many people, after waiting in crowds at the ticket wagon, finally thought that it would not be opened and bought their tickets elsewhere, paying ten cents extra. I was talking with a gentleman from Montpelier who was among the crowd. He asked me whether I had even seen the Agents' Herald. When I answered that I took it regularly, he said, "so do I, and I should just like to know what L. Lum Smith would call this kind of business." I told him that I would write and ask you to tell us. He said that the editor of the Agents' Herald would go for them "baldheaded" if he understood the matter just as it was, and surely I did not vote in the negative, I assure you.
If the points are exactly as presented to us by our valued correspondent, we entirely agree with him as to the character of the conduct pursued by Forepaugh's Circus. When a circus advertises "Doors open at 1 o'clock" they mean, as does a store-keeper, we will be ready to do business at that hour, (for of what use would it be to open the door unless people could secure tickets of admission), and have no right to intentionally keep their customers standing out in the weather for nearly half an hour, besides these persons come as guests of Mr. Forepaugh's Circus, and a moral obligation, to say the least, should prompt Mr. Forepaugh and his agents to protect them from being imposed upon right under his nose.
If Mr. Forepaugh had disposed of all his tickets honestly and simply did not open his ticket office because he had no tickets to sell, and had so announced by placard conspicuously posted at the ticket office, there would have been no fraud. But, by his afterwards opening his regular office and selling at the advertised price, 50 cents, twenty minutes after others were selling tickets at 60 cents, he plainly admitted that he still had tickets for that identical performance to sell, and to all appearance was in league with the "speculators."
We, therefore, decide, from the premises given by our correspondent, and we have no reason to believe them untrue, that Mr. Forepaugh was guilty of petty fraud in the above-named transaction, and we advise those readers of the Herald, located in such places as Forepaugh may hereafter visit, that they demand he act in good faith with them and the public. This, we recommend as one check and a good one, too, for Forepaugh's Circus will find it difficult, we opine, to exhibit in any town or village, from Maine to California, where the Agents' Herald is not thoroughly read and appreciated.
Robinson & Lake's circus and menagerie will exhibit in Salem, Va., on the 21st, and at Liberty, Bedford Co., Va., on the 23d.
Mr. R. Sands of the Sands, Nathans & Go's American Circus, is in town enjoying his otium cum dig. The company are enjoying some other kind of "dig" in Pennsylvania.
The circus companies that went into Canada have been, obliged to leave suddenly - cause, scarcity of money. For the same reason, some of the Western and Southern companies have laid up. The Northern and Eastern States turn out strong in support of the show, which is a significant index of the financial state of the country.
Sands, Nathans & Co.'s circus pitched their tent at Columbia, Pa., Sept. 12, Lancaster 13th, Harrisburg 15th, Reading 19th, and so on through the state. Little Master Philo is a good card, and pleases the masses greatly. It is said that Dan Rice is also close at hand, and would show at Reading the same day.
Rivers & Derious's circus company have left Missouri, and are now in Arkansas, where they were to exhibit at Fort Smith on the 14th, 15th and 16th; and then, ho! for Texas. The company consists of John Foster, clown and jester; the celebrated Rivers family; G. Derious; Jos. Jacko; the four American acrobats; Woods and lady; Nichols and sons; with the two E flat clowns, masters Wash and Eddy.
Van Amburgh & Co's. Circus and Menagerie are in the vicinity of Salem, N. C.
Donnetti's troupe of trained dogs and monkeys have been cutting up their shines in Milwaukee, and the interior towns of Wisconsin and Illinois, doing a fair business, and are now domiciled at McVicker's Theatre, Chicago, where they opened on the 5th, for two weeks. They then proceed to Kala-mazoo, 19th and 20th; Marshall, 21st; Jackson, 22d; Ann Arbor, 23d; Ypsilanti, 24th; thence to Sandusky City, visiting a few towns in Ohio, and then start south for the winter. Major Burnell, the agent, is driving business with a free hand.
Antonio & Wilder's Great Circus is still ploughing its way through Michigan. The route is as follows: - Albion 14th, Jackson 15th, Grass Lake 16th, Dexter 17th, Ann Arbor 19th, Ypsilanti 20th, Selina 21st, Tecumseh 22d, Adrian 23d, and Hudson 24th. Johnny Davenport, the clown attached to the World Circus, rescued one of the company, Mr. W. Armstrong, from a watery grave, while exhibiting at Lansing a few days since. The two were taking a walk along the shore about 11 o'clock, P. M., at the close of the show, when Armstrong made a misstep, and fell into the river; Johnny immediately leaped in after him, and brought him safe to shore. Moral - Never go near the river so late at night. C. Whitney, the artistic agent of the company, is as glad to get out of that Michigan wilderness as Armstrong was to get out of the water.
Howes & Cushing's United States Circus Company are performing under a tent in Ireland; travelling through the country, making a new stand daily, and, for want of tavern accommodations, compelled to encamp at every place. A letter dated at Clonmel, August 22d, from one of the proprietors to a friend in this city, says: "We have applied to the owners of the steamship 'Great Eastern' to take us and one hundred horses to America on her first trip; and it is our intention to put a temporary ring on the upper deck, and give equestrian performances to the passengers in fair weather. The track of the ring will be made of india-rubber matting, the same as is used in the London theatres when circus performances are given on the stage; and the gymnastic tackle, the tight and slack-rope fixings, and the trapeze apparatus, are to be attached to the rigging of the ship." As the "Great Eastern" is likely to bring out some eight or ten thousand passengers on her first trip, the circus may draw good "houses" on board every day of the passage.
Harry Ruggles, formerly well known as a slack rope performer, lately agent of Robinson and Lake's Circus and Menagerie, is now in town, and stopping at the Florence Hotel. He speaks of the company as doing a fine business.
LENT'S NATIONAL CIRCUS A MAMMOTH COMBINATION: THREE CIRCUSES MERGED INTO ONE.
Gen. R. WELCH'S National Circus, Philadelphia. L. B. LENT'S New York Circus, N. Y. Col. CHARLES MAY'S "Great Show," New Orleans.
NOW ON ITS TRIUMPHAL TOUR, Will exhibit at the following places: - At Williamsburgh, Wednesday, 14th; Jersey City, Thursday, 15th; Newark, Friday, 16th; Elizabethtown, Saturday, 17th; Rahway, Monday, 19th; Perth Amboy, Tuesday, 20th; Brunswick, Wednesday, 21st.
Look Out For The Circus.
L. B. LENT'S TRIPLE CONSOLIDATOR
Admission ............................ 25 Cents.
This Circus is a legitimate organization - not a collection of beasts, a few acrobats, and indifferent riders - but a finely equipped concern, full and efficient in every particular, embracing all that is NOVEL AND ELEGANT IN THE ARENA. SALLIE STICKNEY, the pride of the circle, and TWENTY-SEVEN ACKNOWLEDGED GREAT PERFORMERS.
Amongst the vagaries will be them two assinine comedians, "Dan Rice" and P. T. Barnum.
When one talks about the circus, only a few outstanding names are familiar to everyone, but there are names of men who have run circuses successfully who are not so well-known and yet to write a history of the circus and eliminate such names would be like writing a history of the stage and leaving out a Barrymore. One such name was James Augustus Hatch. But that name is revered by those who know their circuses. How many, outside of the profession, ever heard of Hatch and Hitchcock's Circus? Yet it was a great show for its day, coming before the time of railroad circuses, it had to travel across country by wagon and was one of the model mud shows of its day.
But let us start at the beginning. Jim Hatch was born at Woodstock, Vermont, of an old New England family, with traditions to maintain. Youngest of all the children, he still had the inherent strain of pioneering coursing through his veins. He wanted to do new things and so, like hundreds of other boys, he cut loose from the Puritanical apron-strings and ran away from home. The number thirteen wasn't unlucky for him, for that was the age at which he took the world on his own shoulders. He thought the sea held the greatest adventure, so he made for the nearest point where he could hear the splash of the waves and that was nearly two hundred miles from his home. There wasn't any hitchhiking in those days, so Jimmy had to beg railroad rides and work at odd jobs until he reached New Bedford, Mass., then the whaling center of the world. It wasn't very difficult for him to ship as a cabin boy for he had a pleasing personality and certainly courage to go out alone in the world at such an immature age.
He made a trip to Labrador and penetrated part of the Arctic region. He seemed to like it, for when his first boat-ride was over the boy had grown to youth and now at the age of sixteen was allowed under the law to ship as an able seaman. This he did from Gloucester, Mass., and his second trip brought him to New Orleans, La. But wages weren't much to brag about in those days, and the work was hard, so after buying necessary clothing and other things Jimmie Hatch was without money. Jobs were not so plentiful, either, even at that time and each day found Hatch prowling along the waterfront looking for any kind of a job. But instead of finding a job, he found a boy of about his own age and one in about the same fix as himself, only his newly found friend had not been following the sea, but belonged to that class designated as "troupers." For several years this newly made acquaintance - none other than the famous Tony Pastor - had been clowning with a circus. Of course young Pastor wasn't always clowning, but when he failed in everything else some-one suggested that he don the motley and then, as a singing clown, he immediately made good. The story fascinated young Hatch and from that minute on he decided that the rest of his days would be spent with the sawdust and spangles. Hardly had the decision been made when the boys made inquiries and learned that the Spalding and Rogers' Steamboat Circus was coming to New Orleans in a few days. Those days seemed like months, but the big gaudy steamboat had hardly tied to the wharves when the boys wheedled out Hen Rogers and both bubbled over with such enthusiasm that the hard-boiled Rogers couldn't resist giving them jobs as clowns in his outfit, provided they did their share of the heavier work around the lot or on the boat.
From then on J. Milton Traber, a noted circus historian, tells the story in a very fascinating manner in a January Billboard, of 1911. "From that moment Hatch and Pastor entered into a friendship that lasted a lifetime - a rival Damon and Pythias. At this time also working in Spalding and Rogers troupe of clowns and tumblers was a young man named William Fay, afterwards becoming famous as "Billy Fay, king of clowndom," and Signor Peur De Honeur, who returned some years later to his home in Paris, France, where he made a name for himself at the Folies Berger,
"Hatch and Pastor continued with the Spalding and Rogers Company until April, 1864 when the show broke up at St. Louis, Mo. At this time Hatch having received a legacy upon the death of his father in the East decided to enter the circus business on his own account. Tony Pastor took his and went to New York City, where he went on the variety stage opening a theatre in the Bowery in 1865 and then moving from there to other theatres, the most famous of which is the Fourteenth street playhouse, still called by his name, at which Lillian Russell and other noted stage celebrities made their first appearance." (Author's note: Mr. Tony Pastor for forty-three years was theatre owner, "star" maker, and songwriter in New York City, during which time he amassed and spent several fortunes, dying at Elmhurst, New York, on August 27, 1908).
"The new circus under the management of James Hatch was known as the Hatch and Hitchcock Show. It opened at Cambridge, Mass., where its first appearance was not auspicious, a wind storm blowing down the tent on the heads of the audience. However, not losing faith the show continued and toured the Eastern States in its first season but meeting with little success, Hatch decided to move further West. He accordingly went to St. Louis, Mo., and started a tour of the towns on the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers.
"At Baton Rouge, La., Mr. Hatch picked up a young acrobat who was destined to become one of the most noted of clowns in the history of the circus ring. This young man applied for the position of "spieler or barker" for one of the side shows and gave his name as Daniel Rice. In the course of this tour the circus gave a performance in the market square of Kansas City, Mo. At this performance Daniel Rice was promoted to the position of clown, the regular employee being ill.
"The young man made good and in a few years was the owner and manager of a circus of his own which, as Dan Rice's Show, traveled the world over.
"In 1875, Mr. Hatch having been in the circus business twenty-six years, bought out the Stone and Murray Circus and then decided for a time to retire to manage a hotel at Westfield, Conn., having the confidence in his partner, leaving the management of the circus to John Murray.
"The next season he sold out his interest in the show and left the circus business entirely. John Murray in an attempt to take the circus to South America, was shipwrecked in the Gulf of Mexico, losing several elephants and other valuable animals, and barely escaping with his life. Murray then returned to Westfield, where Hatch put him on his feet financially.
"James A. Hatch decided to locate in Kansas City, Mo., as this was considered the brightest and best city in the West, so in 1881 he bought the old Delaven Hotel." (Author's note: In 1905 he was located at 429 Walnut Street corner of Fifth Street, in Kansas City, in what he called "Hatch's European Hotel, Cafe and Buffet - Headquarters for Circus and Theatrical People.")
"In 1884 he was appointed receiver for the Daniel Rice Circus Co., which had failed in Kansas City. Owing to this appointment Mr. Hatch became the owner of the famous trained elephant "Gypsy," which he sold to Mr. William H. Harris, of Nickel Plate Show fame.
Ten years later the writer was informed that the elephant went either temporarily insane or on a rampage, killing a keeper in winterquarters in Chicago and injuring many of a crowd of sightseers. At this time "Gypsy" was captured and subdued by either Claude Orton, Barney Shay or Dan Costello and afterwards proved a good investment to Mr. Harris, who also exhibited "Gypsy" with Baby Barney in a first class elephant act. But afterwards while traveling in the South "Gypsy" again became unmanageable and causing a great deal of trouble was put to death by the proprietors of the Nickel Plate Shows.
"The last time James A. Hatch was seen by the writer, he was sitting in the drawing room of his home. This old gentleman certainly has a wonderful fund of reminiscences.
"He said that formerly many of his circus friends visited him, but now they are practically all dead and gone. The last to make his final exit was Tony Pastor. He received a letter from him only a month before he died. "All my memories now are my photographs of famous circus men which decorate the walls of my home," said Mr. Hatch.
"The last visitor I had was a youngster who was with the Ringlings in '88. He was too modern for me, however, and I couldn't get interested. All my longings are for the 120 foot tent and the single ring circus where a clown can display real talent both in singing and humor.
"This new-fangled three-ring business has spoiled the game for me. The tents are too large to permit the clowns to sing and many good voices are ruined before the artists become aware of the fact. Nowadays it is all slap-stick work and ragtime music. I don't like it. I leave it for my grandchildren.
"I was a member of the first circus that ever played in Kansas City, Mo. I don't think the town had a name at that time.
"We were going down the river to St. Louis and we put ashore at a place called Westport Landing and pitched tents in front of a church. We wouldn't have landed at all if we had not wished to exercise the horses, and our gate or door receipts only amounted to six dollars. That was in the summer of 1852. At that time our show owned the 'first self-propeled machine or wagon', ever put on exhibition. It was about the size of a moving van and was driven by steam. So you see the automobile boys of the present day did not have anything on us in the way of early locomotive invention. The chief attraction about this steam wagon was its calliope whistle. When that was working right a couple of blasts would bring out every farmer within a radius of miles.
"One time we matched the wagon to race a horse at the St. Louis, Mo., fair ground track. The animal was almost scared to death and our contraption won hands down. One of the most vivid recollections of my old show days was of the assasination of President Abraham Lincoln. My show was under canvas at Washington, D. C., at the time. A bareback riding act was just entering the ring when we heard a commotion outside the tent. In a moment the canvas doors were parted and a cavalryman entered the ring, his horse be-spattered with mud from head to foot. The audience thinking that it was part of a novel feature act applauded wildly. It was some moments before the soldier could obtain silence. Waving his saber aloft he shouted: 'Close up the show! President Lincoln has been shot and killed.'
"He then galloped from the arena. For a short time the crowd was dumb-founded, but soon the very people that had been laughing at the antics and jokes of the clowns were filing from the tent with head uncovered and faces expressive of their woe. I offered to return all money at the ticket office, but few applied for it. For the next week, of course, no show opened its doors, and I took a trip to Boston on business.
"As the train sped through the little New England villages, nothing was in evidence but mourning. Every habitation was draped with black and big black flags and American flags at half mast flew from all public edifices. I returned to Washington and my show was playing at the time Mme. Surratt was hanged.
"I thought there would be a riot, and thousands of soldiers filled the streets, ordered out by the government to maintain order, and excitement was a fever heat. One of the hardest things that we old time circus managers had to contend with was the popular idea that all circuses were run for the benefit of the pickpocket. The pickpockets would gather in some eastern coast town and organize a second rate, circus for the express intention of fleecing the country people. Such piratical expeditions became so general as to cause universal mistrust. Instead of rallying to the ticket wagon, the populace would flee from the very sight of a circus poster. The sheriff of every small town would hail the advent of a. traveling show as a chance to earn a little easy hush money. I always held out against this state of affairs as being unprofessional, which to my mind is worse than dishonesty."
Gazing into the firelight the old troupers eyes filled a moment as he summoned up memories of by-gone days, mates and companions. "Well, I have lived past the alloted three score years and ten, now being past four score years, but I think that my life has not been altogether futile. My show has caused smiles to wreathe many a face and cheered hearts from one end of the country to the other. I feel that my course has been well run."
Mr. Hatch died at his home, 3638 Walnut Street, Kansas City, Mo., at 7 o'clock on the morning of February 22, 1912, at the age of 81. He was survived by his wife, Mrs. Ellen Hatch; a son, Alvin Hatch, who was later waylaid by highwaymen, dying from the results; three daughters, Mrs. Gilbert Morton, Mrs. Edward Carrow and Mrs. Ellen Heidinger, all of Chicago. It was the writer's privilege to know Mr. Hatch quite intimately during his last years, in fact corresponded with him regularly. And every letter the writer received was sure to contain news of the circus and its people. His mind was keen and, like the majority of old-timers, he was a man of character. He has played his last stand - the band has played Home Sweet Home. Jimmy Hatch is at rest.
Outside of Ashtabula, Ohio County, shows were numerous in the '70's and '80's, and the first show that carried animals that I ever saw was Adam Forepaugh's aggregation. I've forgotten the year - must have been in the early '70's. I remember my father and mother putting on their Sunday clothes, my father being a good horseman, hitched up his best span of trotters - (we then lived in Trumbull Township, Ohio) and we drove to Geneva to see the best circus that ever was in that village up to that time. I had never seen a wild animal. We ate our lunch in our carriage where we parked under a church wagon shed that still stands, and when we were about half through the meal we heard a terrible roaring and I was surely frightened. My mother calmed me and told me that was the lion's roar in the big circus.
When we walked on the lot to me it was like looking at a fairyland. There were two round-top tents, I remember distinctly, no middles, but they were large and I would guess there were a dozen cages - all healthy-looking animals. In the first cage was a zebra, then there was a pair of Royal Bengal tigers that walked continuously, passing each other. These animals were the talk of the country for weeks after the show had gone.
It was a one-ring show, but every act good. There was one center-pole and I don't remember any reserve seats. I remember the Main family of three sat on the extreme top seats and before the performance started, we could look back in, the dressing-room and see a gentleman rehearsing a milk-white horse that picked the silver dollar out of the bucket of water, and other stunts. There was a double-trapeze act of two men, contortionists, one lady rider, two elephants, large and small, the large one only performing, and worked, I think, by one of the Forepaugh family - not Adam, Junior. They used a dirt ring and many of the Trumbull boys worked their way in by helping shovel out this ring, but the writer that day happened to have the money for the admission so he didn't have to work. I will never forget the jam at. the ticket wagon - no up-town tickets and no helper. One man sold them fast. In later years I heard it was Ben Lusby, the "lightning ticket-seller."
The feature of the concert was a performer that smoked, drank and ate under water. The Main family didn't remain for the concert as it took all our silver to get in the big show and buy peanuts and things.
But we went home happy and boosted the show to everyone we met on the road and induced many that were doubtful to go at night. The afternoon was packed and so was the night performance. Dan Rice had played Geneva one week ahead of Forepaugh without any animals at the same price - fifty cents, and the show did not give satisfaction. I never saw the Dan Rice Circus. He quit before my day.
Little did I think when I saw the Forepaugh Circus that only a few years later I would show on that same lot with a thirty-car railroad show and twice as many tents and twice as many animals as Adam exhibited the day I saw my first big tent show.
When our family went to Forepaugh's aggregation my people had never been in the business.
In 1874 my father was operating a concert company of his own, playing churches and school-houses, and after spending my vacation with him, I came back to the farm and saw billed in Rock Creek, Ohio - Beard, Howles and Company Circus. A bunch of neighbor boys and myself walked six miles to see this show and saw them parade as they came in town. In those days they formed a parade about a mile before they arrived in the show town and made the parade coming in. I never could understand how this was done, nevertheless they did it and it looked very clean, although there were no elephants and no camels - five cages of animals. One cage contained two lions. I happened to have a quarter so didn't have to help put up the tents as some of the boys did. While the menagerie was weak, the circus was very good. One of the riders was supposed to get drunk on horseback - this was very funny and would be good today. It was a one-ring show with one pole in the center. The single horizontal bar act was good - also the leaps, and Bill LaRue and his two sons did an acrobatic act which was O. K.
I rode home in a lumber wagon with one William Gale and his family. Gale had tried to beat the shell game. This was down-town and not on the lot. Gale lost $40 and was kicking about it all the way home. This wasn't the worst of it - he went to the general store where all the farmers loafed that night and explained just how it was done, but instead of getting any sympathy, they kidded him about it for years to come.
In 1880 myself and two other young chaps were in advance Burdick & Allen's small circus. Decoration Day Welch and Sands Railroad Shows of about a dozen cars made Saltsburg, Pa. This was the first railroad show I ever saw. The other two mentioned above were wagon shows. The three youthful agents were up at daylight to see the show arrive and when it pulled across the bridge over the river it gave me a thrill that I have never forgotten. This show was owned by Sells Brothers and Louis Sells was there and was the manager. He did a phenomenal business in Saltsburg and passed us three to everything, and I formed a friendship with Sells that lasted through his lifetime. Also in later years he introduced me to his brothers and to his nephew, Willie, and they were good friends and good advisers.
John McMahon was a hurdle-rider and a good one - later owned a circus of his own. George Costello was press agent. The performance was good, but it had no strong features. Sells Bros, were at the same time operating the big Sells Bros. Circus. The Contracting Agent was Geo. McIntosh, of Windsor, Ohio. He told the citizens that the show was owned by Sells Bros, and Louis discharged him for talking too much.
That summer I saw in Wilkesbarre, Pa., W. C. Coup's big one-ring circus. I think they used company cars, about twenty. In the side-show which was swell they featured the Wild Men of Borneo and they were some feature. There were two poles in the big tent, one ring in the center, and I have never in all these years, in either Europe or America seen a better circus. Nearly every act was a feature - the dogs had a court trial and the dogs hung one guilty dog. The horse "Nettle" jumped over a gate and four other horses. Frank and James Melville were riders. Frank rode a bareback horse that trotted instead of running. There was a troup of Japs and never saw any better since. One little Jap sang WHERE WAS MOSES' WHEN THE LIGHT WENT OUT. Drayton, a cannon ball tosser was a wonder. I can't recall everything, but it was all grand, and I believe a show framed the same way today would be profitable.
The first high-school horse I ever saw was in Coup's show ridden by Katie Stokes. They featured a whale of some kind, but I think it was only the hide. Everything was a feature, and they pictured every act exactly correct. The shows of today overlook features. In those days they couldn't exist without them. Today the young managers don't know what the word feature means. I met Coup. He passed myself and two youthful assistants through all departments. He was certainly one of the greatest showmen the world has ever known, but enlarged too fast and failed in Detroit in 1882. I met his manager, E. D. Colvin, and thirteen years later he was my manager with a show larger than Coup's.
The same year the same three boys visited Dr. Thayer's one-ring circus in Berwick, Pa. There were no animals - just a nice one-ring show. The doctor had failed some years before, but he promoted some angel in Pittsburgh and he certainly put out a clean outfit, but there were no outstanding features and they could not compete with shows that carried animals. That fall the backer disposed of the property and Thayer went back to Pittsburgh minus his circus. Thayer played clown and they carried one swell rider, I think his name was Watson. Fredericks, Gloss and Lavan did a Roman act - very nice, but there was no particular pep to the exhibition and it sort of died a natural death.
The writer was the youngest circus general agent in 1880, and the two other boys were my billposters.
In 1881 I was general agent of the Main & Sergeant Circus with two assistants and three horses in advance. In Sundbury, Pa., we visited Batcheller & Doris one-ring circus and they carried a nice menagerie and was a beautiful outfit. The acrobatic act was the three Siegrist Bros. - don't know whether they are any relatives of the performers by that name of these days or not. Sally Marks was the lady rider and her father, Hiram Marks, ringmaster. The show was fair but not as good as Coup's or a circus I'll mention later. The big feature was ZAZIL being shot from a cannon. She caught a wire and finished by doing a fine wire act. The same year we visited in Reading, Pa., Shelby, Pullman and Hamilton's Circus, same size as Doris, excepting they had three elephants, Doris only one. They had a ZAZIL, too, doing the same act - might have been sisters. Some of the performers with this show were Harry Mack, Ringmaster; Ajax, Contortionist; Dan Shelby, one of the owners, if there ever was a funnier clown than Dan I've never seen him. He was a talking clown, Shakespearian clown and an original clown. He wore a suit that was half dress and half pants - never saw one like it since. Besides the regular seats there were extra seats clear to the ring banks.
In 1929 the Barnum Show shot a man out of a cannon. That's all - didn't do any wire like the girls did fifty years ago, but this only proves that old acts can be revived. Many of them that I've mentioned, and others, would be new to this generation.
There was no hippodrome in those days with the shows mentioned. The people sat close to the ring where they could hear and see everything without becoming cross-eyed, and I really believe today a show framed exactly like Coup a half a century ago would be a brilliant success, but I don't seem to get any of my associates to agree with me.
Where the "Stake and Chain Wagon" is located there can be found at different times nearly everyone connected with the circus. Even the Big Boss finds time to visit it quite often. For you can always get a good laugh or learn something about the racket no matter how wise you are at the Stake and Chain Wagon. Enough good material goes to waste there every day, to make a good circus story or play.
Here is where the heads of all departments get together to plan improvements and talk about new devices, and many splendid labor-saving devices have been planned and worked out around the Stake and Chain Wagon.
Strange as it may seem, the bosses are hardly out of winterquarters two days before they are planning something new for the next season.
Usually some ex-boss canvasman or seat man who has become too old to stand the hard steady grind of working on canvas, grand-stand, jacks, stringers seat planks, or stakes is placed in charge of the Stake and Chain Wagon. It is a sort of pension job for these old-timers, not that there isn't any work connected with the job, for there is plenty, but it is not of the strenuous laborious kind, so these older men can handle it very nicely. Then, too, there is a little side money to be picked up on this job, as the ticket-sellers, candy butchers, front-door men and bosses, keep their wet weather clothing in the wagon, where they can be reached in a hurry in rainy weather, and they all give the Stake and Chain man a little change each week. So with his tips, and what he draws from the pay wagon, makes a living wage.
Such old-timers as Jack Gee, Shanty Davis, Hungry Bill Wilson, Daffy Ed. Hopkins, Pogey O'Brien, Indiania Fat, Jersey Carr, Jim Babcock, Gloomy Gus and many other noted circus characters, have been Stake and Chain Wagon men.
In an emergency any one of these men could put up, take down, and pack away any old circus There isn't any thing around the "Old Rag," as they call it, from laying out the lot to loading the train, that these old boys cannot do.
The majority of people are of the opinion that a workingman on a circus is just a rough-neck, but in many cases they are mistaken, for I have seen men from all walks of life working as roustabouts, some because they were broke and needed money, others because they wanted to see the country, and figured that this was a unique way of doing it. Really it is surprising to know how well posted many of the bosses and working men are. You can get an intelligent argument on most any subject, both old and new, at the Stake and Chain Wagon.
I have known several of them (one in particular called John the Baptist) who could quote scripture as well as the average preacher, and Shakesepeare as well as many of the Shakespearean actors. Occasionally you find college graduates working on the circus lot.
Men who make the Stake and Chain Wagon their headquarters very rarely speak of anything that happens on the lot, except in their own department. Usually the scandalmongers are found among the would-be or self-appointed managers, and they are a class of knockers for whom no one has any use. They are the know-it-alls, they can tell you just how much the receipts of the show are every day, give you the correct route of the show before the General Agent really knows it himself, tell you how much salary everyone connected with the show is drawing, how many country routes are done out of each show stand, how many sheets of paper each Bill Poster has posted, what the boss eats for his breakfast, and what brand of face powder the principal lady bare-back rider uses. They even go so far as to tell the manager his Agents are a big bunch of four-flushers, and that the Contracting Agent does nothing but draw his salary, sit around the hotel lobbies entertaining the guests, and very often overlooks a lot right in the heart of the city that would have saved the show a couple of miles haul and would have cost less money than the one that was contracted.
Every show has a few of these pests, for it is almost impossible to get from five to fifteen hundred people together without picking up a few of them. If all managers would make a special effort to rid the show of these rats, things would run much smoother for all concerned, for they are trouble breeders of the worst calibre, and about as useful as a sore thumb. These fellows will turn their nose up at a good reliable workingman, and yet a good workingman is an asset to any show. Smart managers of course pay no attention to these goofs, but never overlook a reliable workingman.
I once heard Chas. Gollmar, manager of Gollmar Brothers circus, tell Fred Seymour, his steward, to feed Blackie Ward, an old-timer, any time he came on the lot, and as long as he wanted to stay, whether he joined out or not. Fred, curious to know why the boss had given such an order, asked him his reason for it. The answer he got was, "Well, Fred, Blackie will walk away without any apparent reason when the sun is shining and we are full handed. He has been on our show many times since we started in the business, but I have never known him to walk away when it was raining, or when we were short handed. So Blackie is always welcome to eat in our cook-house, and there is always a job on the show for him, as long as we own one."
There are many Blackie Wards among the better class of circus workingmen, who never leave only when things are the brightest.
After Otto Ringling had died and his will was read, it was found he had left Jack Gee, his old Stake and Chain Wagon man, fifty dollars a month for the rest of his life; in fact he remembered all of his old bosses in his will, and that is as it should be, for it was the loyalty of these men that helped make the show successful. Otto seemed to have a warm spot in his heart for Jack Gee, and it is rumored he spent a couple of hours every day, between shows, the last year of his life, in one of Old Jack's high-back canvas chairs at the Stake and Chain Wagon.
The circus came to our town on a Thursday. But in many ways the coming was different from its triumphal approach to the other towns stretched across the continent. It was to stay with us a whole month instead of but one day, and we were to have the first glimpse of its new wonders. The big town had long been illumined by the rainbow posters; from every corner of the globe, acrobats, riders, performing seals and almost human chimpanzees had heard the call and were hurrying to the opening of the greatest show on earth.
For a week the vans had been carrying their cumbersome loads from the winter quarters at Bridgeport to the back door of Madison Square Garden; the property men had been hanging and testing the superstructure for the flying trapeze and had laid the three rings; the teamsters had hauled the animal cages and the golden chariots to the menagerie and property rooms; the horses had been stabled in the basement and the elephants chained to the wall of "Elephant Alley."
At two o'clock on Monday afternoon a few hours more than three days before the opening of the season the first rehearsal had been called. Outside it was a clear spring day and a few passers-by had been tempted to the single ticket office in the silent lobby; down in the basement the grooms were clipping the ponies of their winter coats, and the animal trainers were buckling the harness on the camels in preparation for the "grand tournament." The big auditorium of the Garden looked like a one-ring circus that had recently been visited by a cyclone. A forest of ropes and wires and broad nets dangled from the girders, the property-room was a confused mass of blankets, gold tables, mattresses, banners, paper-mache heads, glistening spears, red chariots and great canvas covered floats. The floor of the arena, with the exception of the two performing platforms, was still a great sheet of sticky clay, for this was still that curious anomaly, a circus without sawdust. At the far end a few of the boxes and seats rising above them were filled with the three hundred performers and their families and many friends. The men lounged about in groups and smoked cigarettes and pipes and swapped stories of their winter travels; the women performers seemed to gather in the greatest numbers about the mothers with the smallest babies. Shipp, the ring-master and the stage manager of the show, mounted one of the platforms and called for the male performers. Big, deep-chested German acrobats; wiry trapeze artists with waxed mustaches and curled hair, from Austria, Bulgaria, France, Mexico and South-American countries; fat and lean clowns and dwarfs and midgets; whole families of thick-set, dark-skinned Japanese jugglers and savage-looking Spanish and Cuban tumblers, crowded and jostled like a lot of school-boys at play for a place on the platform. As Shipp called out the names, the performers stepped out and, still like school children were jeered and cheered by their fellows. In all the crowd I do not believe that there was a suit of clothes that had cost ten dollars - surely, there was not a part of any garment to which an arrow could point with reasonable pride - and this is a profession where spangles play so important a part. The press agent at my elbow looked a little wearily at the strange collection of humanity huddled together on the platform.
"That," he whispered, "is the most expensive group of artists ever gathered together. The splendid fellow in the gray sweater and the corduroy hand-me - I mean suit or garment - gets four hundred dollars for a single act. Circus people, as a class are saving. If" - Shipp had called for the women performers and the press-agent's voice trailed off and was lost in the rush of skirts and feminine laughter. It was practically their first meeting en masse, and they greeted one another with genuine enthusiasm. Many of them had not met for months, some for years - perhaps they had said goodbye and parted when the season closed last fall in Kansas City, or it may have been in Warsaw the winter before, or sometime in the dim past at Trieste or at Panama or at Buenos Ayres or at the London Hippodrome, or even years and years ago, long before they had become famous and had worked together in the small towns of India or China or Africa. In their appearance I found the first resemblance that I had so far discovered to any other rehearsal. They were dressed very much as a group of chorus girls would dress for the first call of a musical comedy. Loose shirt waists and short cloth skirts with here and there a gay bit of color, an occasional pair of silk stockings, or a new spring hat. As a rule they were not very young and the average of beauty was not high - in nearly every case there was the tired look in the eyes and a drawn face that tells of work, hard, continuous work. In the entire crowd I did not see a woman who wore any make-up and afterward, when I got to know more of them, just how sincere and simple a folk they were, how essentially clean they were in mind and body, I could understand how artifice of any kind did not appeal to them at all. It was only the stolid, heavy-faced German women who stood apart - the rest, especially the Latins, embraced, kissed one another always on both cheeks, and babbled away in a dozen different tongues and always at the top of their voices.
"The young lady in the plum-colored walking-suit, with hat to match," whispered the press-agent, "is not only the star of the troupe, but its most beautiful member. You will note how exquisitely small are her feet in low, bronze shoes, and yet she is the greatest slackwire walker the world has ever known. She is billed as La Belle Victoria, but she comes of the great Mexican circus family of Cordona. Now but eighteen years of age, she is the toast of her own sunny land. Her father and brother are always with her. Circus people are known for their high moral viewpoint."
To the best of my recollection, the first two facts I was informed of in my early youth were that the world is round like an orange and that the circus performers are moral.
"Tell me," I said to the press-agent, "What, in a word, is the daily life of the circus performer?"
"The artists," said the press-agent, "leave the train as soon as it arrives in town, which is usually from seven to eight o'clock in the morning. The cook-tent has preceded them by several hours and the performers at once have their breakfast. They finish about nine o'clock, and must then prepare for the parade, which takes place at ten. This always consumes at least two hours, and on the return to the grounds, lunch is served. After this they prepare for the matinee, and by the time they have finished their acts - any time from three forty-five to five-fifteen - they have their dinner. From about, let us say, six to seven-thirty the time is all their own and they can go into town and send money home or write letters or buy supper at the delicatessen shops to eat after the show. At half-past seven they must make ready for the evening performance, and as soon as that is over they go directly to their train."
Should the circus performers be heir to all the passions known to man and womankind it seemed to me that the daily routine was calculated to keep them in fairly good moral condition. Even that luxurious hour and a half when they were allowed to send money home and buy supper, seemed hardly adequate for the wholly depraved. But when one knows even a very little of the lives of these people, there is no doubt as to why they are moral - it is because of their love of family. Their simple devotion to their own is the very big thing in a very narrow life, and it is very beautiful. Take, for instance, Victoria Cordona, and her case is a representative one. Her grandfathers and grandmothers, on both sides for two generations, have been circus performers. Her mother has left the circus to bring up the younger children at a school in Texas, the father is no longer equal to the active work necessary to a performer, so, dressed up like a rajah, he rides on an elephant in his parade. His sixteen-year-old son does a trapeze act and both he and old Cordona stand under Victoria when she does her slack-wire act to catch her should she fall. In the same circus her aunt does a trapeze specialty and her uncle is an acrobat. Until she was twelve years of age, the girl went to school, but was unhappy and broke away to begin her life work. There was no other thought in her own mind or that of her family that she would be anything else than a circus performer. In winter quarters she tried the trapeze, tumbling, horse-back riding, and then one day while practicing "stunts" with the children of the other performers she discovered that her metier in life was the slack-wire. She began to work before the public when she was thirteen. At the beginning she was like, the other; slack-wire performers, but, gradually she threw aside the balancing-pole and the parasol and the other paraphernalia that her fellowworkers found necessary. In making his rounds the genius of circus performers had touched her with his wings and had willed that she should be the great Cordona.
The managers of the hippodromes and circuses at Moscow and Paris and Berlin and London who have their scouts scattered all over the world heard of the girl who walked on a wire as other mortals walked on land, and as her fame spread, so her salary increased, and today she is the woman star of the greatest show on earth and the chief breadwinner of the Cordona family. That is her past and present - her future seems written in fairly clear letters. With her love of family and their devotion to her, it is probable that when the present generation take their grandchildren to the circus and see another generation of Cordonas turning somersaults from horseback or swinging blindfolded on a flying trapeze they will tell of Victoria Cordona - she of the slack-wire - the greatest of all the many generations of Cordonas - The Cordona. None of the press-agents knew the girl and they seemed to have a very wholesome dread, not so much of Victoria herself as of the husky athletic brother and the Spanish-looking father with the hooked nose and the fierce bristling mustache. Indeed, it was not until I appealed to the highest authority - the owner of the circus - that I met the Queen of the Slack-wire. She had great masses of tawny-colored hair, a pink complexion and big eyes that shifted from gray to blue. Her appearance gave one the impression of the Spaniard, although she had so few of the common characteristics. She wore cheap turquoise ear-rings and a turquoise brooch, and on one slim finger there was a little circlet of small diamonds. Her manner was very shy and as she groped about for the proper English words with which to answer our questions, she swung confusedly from side to side on her high heel slippers.
Perhaps it was the array of managers and press-agents, or perhaps it was her inability to understand our questions, or why we asked her questions at all, but I know she suddenly smiled a pleasant and unexpected good-bye and ran off to play with some little French children in a neighboring box.
There was a fanfare of trumpets and we knew that the rehearsal for the parade, that always opens the show, was about to begin. It was a very informal rehearsal, without trappings or tinsel of any kind. The elephant trainers wore their brown, greasy overalls, the knights on the cream horses were only grooms in shirt-sleeves and collarless; the ladies, who from childhood I had always seen in long silken gowns and broad hats with waving plumes, wore shirt-waists and short walking skirts. Cleopatra bobbing on the top of her canvas covered barge, was a slim good-looking Italian girl, her attendants, acrobats and kings of the trapeze in tweed clothes. Antony was a stolid German of heroic size, and wore a white sweater, gray canvas knickerbockers, pink Boston garters and a brass crown. A large, blond lady, the most modishly dressed of all the artists, had invited a woman friend to drive in her chariot, and as they jogged slowly about the ring laughed merrily, chatted volubly in French and amused themselves by throwing kisses to an imaginary audience in the long rows of empty seats. The man who rode the other two-horse chariot and who several days later was to appear in a toga and laurel wreath, wore a pair of overalls, a blue flannel shirt and a bowler hat. From beneath a heavy black mustache he scowled gloomily at the levity of the two ladies in the rival chariot. The only part of it all that really seemed like a circus pageant was the band, and even if it was in its shirt sleeves and the leader gripped a cigar tightly between his teeth, there was still a thrill in the trumpets as they blared their way about the arena at the head of the undressed parade.
The ringmaster blew his whistle and the pageant disintegrated; the women performers raced back to the seats and boxes and the men gathered in groups and resumed their pipes and cigarettes. After this the rehearsal was very informal. A young woman with her yellow hair flying loose and dressed in pink tights and a shirt-waist, was hoisted to a trapeze forty feet from the ground. A lady friend held the girl's wrapper and shading her eyes with her hand looked up at the trapezist until she saw her well settled on the swinging bar. Then she called up to her "How do you feel, Lizzie?"
The girl with the pink tights swung slowly on the trapeze and looked down at the great stretch of yellow clay. Her answer I remember distinctly because it was so very human. "Well, now, Allie," she said deliberately and glancing up as if to be sure that the ropes of the trapeze were still holding, "I don't feel right. I'm a little woozy and I think the ground just about where you're standing looks good to me."
Many groups of clowns apparently from the class of young men we see about the village store in small towns, gathered about the ring and planned their acts as much as children would arrange a new game; three herds of elephants were put through their paces in the different rings; a Japanese stripped from a fur coat to a gauze undershirt and a pair of brown trousers, grabbed a parasol and hurried gingerly up a taut wire toward the girders of the high roof; the elephants swinging their ponderous bodies were led from the ring and their places were taken by several tandems of cream-colored horses. Up in the balcony the band started again, and the horses who were fresh from the steamer that had brought them from Panama broke and tried to jump over the wooden ring; the long white reins were tied into an apparently inextricable knot and there was a long delay before the act was ready to start again. A very serious-looking man in his shirt sleeves and with a conspicuously green tie and russet shoes suddenly began running backward and forward across one of the platforms, finishing each turn with a most extraordinary somersault. In the next box to the one in which I was, sat a girl very simply dressed looking out at the auditorium. "Are you not going to rehearse?" I asked. "Not today," she said, "I ride an elephant in the parade and I'm not on again until the races in the Hippodrome part. Last season I did a somersault in the automobile." She raised her hand and slowly rubbed the back of her neck at the very mention of it.
Just in front of us down on the track two midgets were rehearsing a knockabout act and, beyond them, the broad-backed horses were being led into the rings for the rehearsal of the single ring acts. One of the press-agents came along, and, smiling wearily, leaned against the box.
"I've just telephoned a girl reporter," he said, "a long story for tonight's paper. That's the twelfth story I've written today." He rubbed his hand over a three day's beard. "I hope I can get a chance to get shaved before the opening Thursday night. Do you want to meet the rider who in his day was paid more than any man who ever rode a horse in a circus?"
We found him sitting on the edge of one of the platforms within a few feet, of a ring, in which a young man was turning, forward somersaults from the back of a grey horse. The rider rose to greet us; the press-agent was called away presumably to write another story and the ex-performer and I sat on the edge of the platform. He was thick-set, with a round shiny face, a heavy mustache and big, black eyes that seemed to be always smiling. He was a peculiarly modest man and yet he talked only of himself - that is, of the man that was. Just before us the rider ran nimbly across the ring and landed securely on the back of the slow moving horse.
"That's a good horse," the ex-rider said, "a good horse."
"How about the rider?" I asked.
"He's all right - he's a good rider. There are no more great riders. As an act it is just as good as it ever was, but I don't believe there is a rider today who gets over a hundred dollars a week. I got two hundred and fifty, and I and Frank Melville were the only two who had our own carts and extra horses to drive to and from the train. For twenty-nine years I was called the premier rider of America. When I used to ride in the Garden for Barnum they stopped the rest of the show. I was all alone - not even a clown. I've got as many as fifteen calls for my principal act."
"What could you do that other riders could not do?" I asked.
He shook his head and smiled. "Nothing - we all do the same thing. It isn't what you do in our business, it's the way you do it. I wasn't afraid of anything, and all the while I was doing my principal act I was smiling at somebody in the boxes just as if I knew them. I did my work as if it was dangerous and yet as if for me it was too easy and as if I liked it. Charley Fish was the greatest trick rider I ever saw, but he had no style, and when I was working here in the center ring they'd poke him off at the end. I remember once Charley and I pretty nearly had it to a finish. Fish had just left Burr Robbins troupe and had wandered into Gainer's circus, where I was working in Chicago. When Gainer found Fish was in the seats he went into the ring and announced that I would ride any man for ten thousand dollars. Charley waited until I had finished my act and then he came back to see me in the dressing room. I suppose there were about thirty men sitting there waiting for their turns, and he certainly had his nerve to look for a fight in that crowd. He was a little bit of a fellow, but he came up to me switching his cane, and he says 'Bill, who's putting up that $10,000.00? Is it you or Gainer?' I said 'Charley, I don't know anything about it. I can't say whether Gainer's bluffing or not, but you know I haven't got ten thousand dollars.'
The first thing I knew every man in the dressing-room was on his feet and yelling how much he would back me for. It didn't take a minute to raise the ten thousand and Charley's bluff was called. He went out of the room with his head down and still switching his cane, and that was the last I ever saw of him. At his best, he was the greatest trick rider that ever lived, and he was a good fellow, but he hadn't the face or the manner or the shape."
A man went by where we sat, driving a trained goose, and from the ring just back of us a woman carried out a chimpanzee with its long shaggy arms wrapped about her neck.
"Why did you quit?" I asked the ex-rider.
"It quit me," he said. For a moment he looked up at a team of aerial artists swinging lazily on the trapeze over our heads. "I'd saved about sixty thousand dollars and put most of it in a small show in Bulgaria. I was up against it from the start - the weather was bad and politics upset the country and pretty soon they sold me out for debt. They took my horses and my riding clothes, even my diamonds. There was a big stone I used to wear in my shirt-front, which I thought would just about get my wife and me back to my father's farm at Long Branch. I hid it in the hem of my wife's dress, but they got that, too. It was a clean-up all right for those Bulgarians."
"And now?" I asked.
The ex-rider clasped his fat hands and slowly interlaced his chubby fingers.
"Now? Oh, now I am a foreman for an asphalt company. I'd like to get back in the business, but to treat a horse and get my costumes ready for an act would cost at least three thousand. It would take a little time to do the forwards and backwards again, but I could pick it up in a few weeks. You see my folks have always been in the business - we still have the ring on the farm."
The equestrian had finished his act and one of the attendants was raking the ring and gathering the pebbles into small piles.
"Aren't those stones rather bad for a horse?" I asked.
The ex-rider shook his head. "I guess they are, but you don't bother much about those things - you don't bother much about anything when the band begins to play."
From his hip pocket he pulled out a fat wallet filled with letters. He took an old card-sized photograph from between the letters and handed it to me. It was so faded that I could barely distinguish the strong, athletic figure in tights and spangled waist and the little velvet hat with a long white plume. It. was the matinee idol of twenty years ago. "That was me," he said.
I asked him to go out to lunch, but he shook his head and smiled apologetically for his weakness.
"Thank you," he mumbled, "I think I'll stick around here and watch the boys."
During the next three days and nights I saw him sitting alone in a box, his elbows on his knees, his chin resting between his palms and his smiling eyes staring out at the rings and the slowly galloping horses.
By Tuesday evening a great change had taken place in the Garden. Somebody had brought the most complete order out of absolute chaos; the properties had been stored in their proper places, the costumes had been hung in the dressing-rooms, and where formerly it had been difficult to pick one's way, there now seemed to be needless wastes of space. The rehearsal was run off just as it was to be on the opening night, and it was a most interesting game to try to recognize one's former friends. A man whom I had watched going through strange and unaccountable gyrations on a high pedestal had turned into a beautifully spangled and spotted frog: the living pictures who had formerly assumed gladiatorial poses dressed in brown overalls and red flannel shirts, I now recognized in two Romans covered completely in pure white fleshlings. The acrobats, head balancers, clowns and trained animals now did their acts with all the properties and paraphernalia; the horses appeared in their best harness, the howdahs had been saddaled on the elephants and every now and then an artist appeared in a gold and spangled costume.
From the "grand entrance" to the last number on the program there, was, with one exception, no bustle or excitement, no apparent nervousness or the slightest display of temper. The owners of the show sat looking on, placid and apparently but very mildly interested. Only once did I hear one of the two brothers called upon for a decision and that was in regard to the taking of a flash-light of a baby giraffe. Indeed, during those four happy days, I cannot remember ever having heard anyone giving any particular directions. Everyone worked hard and willingly - nobody swore and nobody came to rehearsal the worse for a good dinner. When the entire company was called for the "grand entrance" the performers took their places, whether it was on foot or on horse or on a camel or on an elephant. The highest paid trapeze artist walked next to the lowly paid groom; the queen on her barge was probably part of a tumbling act for which she received probably fifty dollars a week, but she was attended by the champion of the tight wire whose pay ran up into the hundreds. Every man and woman in the company appeared in the parade in addition to doing one or two special acts, and it never seemed to occur to any of them to question the arrangements of Shipp or to claim what they considered professional rights.
The reason for this remarkable condition - remarkable, certainly to anyone familiar with the theatrical branch of the profession - was that these people, almost without exception, have come from generations of performers, and the first law of the circus is to obey the ring-master, not only to obey, but quickly and cheerfully. Unlike theatrical folk, their social position in the company is not fixed by the salary list but rather by the length of time their forefathers have been circus performers. As whole families go into the business, it is not natural that all the members can be stars, so while one boy may become a famous performer, the others may occupy the lowest positions in this army of a thousand workers. The girl, therefore, whose efforts nature has confined to handing a handkerchief to her family of head balancers, perspiring but of ancient lineage, may hold aloof from the artist who receives a great salary for risking his newly-rich neck by diving from the top of the main tent. The circus performer notwithstanding has a great regard for the true artist and two incidents of this particular Tuesday night convinced me of the fact. One was the extraordinary interest the other performers took in the report that Cordona was going to rehearse her slack-wire act, and the other was a tribute they paid to Wulff, whom many consider the greatest of living horse-trainers. It so happened that during the parade he was sitting with his much bejewelled and very beautiful wife in the box just across the aisle from where I sat. As the first rider in the procession passed, he gravely saluted the trainer. Wulff rose to his feet and, looking very much like the German Emperor, raised his hand to the vizor of his cap. Every man and woman on a horse did the same, and Wulff was kept on his feet until the procession had entirely passed. It was, all in all, a very grave and serious affair - a very sincere and heart-felt tribute to the master.
When the procession was all over and the rehearsal of the performance was under way, I went to look for the Cordona. I found her alone waiting for her turn on the slack-wire. She was dressed in an old and rather frayed red silk dress and red silk stockings and she carried a rose-colored silk mantilla about her shoulders.
"Yes," she said, "I'm a little nervous. I haven't been on a wire for two months; I guess I will feel a little scary up there. I've been visiting my mother and sisters in Texas and there was no place to practice."
Her supply of English seemed to come to a sudden end and I tried to find out just what were the aims and ambitions of the greatest of slack-wire walkers.
"My work!" she gasped, "I love it. I don't like to ride the elephant much in the street parade, but then that's the only way I can see the towns where I'm working. It is not a good way to see the city or the people because the elephant bobs up and down so. I never see anything on a level."
I tried her on books and plays, but she always led the talk back to the folks at home, her four spangled dresses and her pride in the work of her brother and aunt and uncle in the circus world.
"Oh, yes," she said, "I have many friends in the company, but my best friend I lost last year. She was such a nice girl and she was a good performer on the trapeze, too, but last Spring she broke her neck."
Shipp blew his whistle, a motley crowd of performers ran out of the three rings and the Cordona rose from her seat.
"That's me," she said.
The girl, at least so it seemed to me, suddenly felt herself the great artist and she knew that she was the cynosure of all eyes in the Garden. She put down the reticule she had carried in her hand, slowly took the lace shawl from her shoulders, and lounged down the steps to the track where her father and brother were waiting for her. For the first time the audience of professionals began to take an apparent interest in the performance. Most of them had never seen the girl at work, but they had heard of her from others who had and all of them had known some of the Cordonas. Their interest in the startling novelty of the new show seemed to be most lukewarm, but here was a new star about to appear in one of the classic roles. Every man and woman performer in the big building knew every trick that had ever been done on a slack-wire as a child knows its alphabet.
Once in the air the red figure hesitated and then, almost without any motion of the hands, ran the length of the invisible wire, turned with a quick swish of her silken skirts and started back with that peculiar lope necessary in walking any straight line. She had gone but a few feet when she stopped quite suddenly and looked about her at the rows of empty seats and boxes and then at the far end of the Garden, where her own people were leaning forward with wide-open eyes. With her hands hanging at her sides, she walked slowly forward as we ordinary mortals would stroll along a broad hard beach, kicking pebbles as we went and half way on her journey she slightly raised her arms and indulged in a long luxurious yawn. Then without any heed to the time of the band, which was banging out a rag-time tune, she walked slowly on her way. After that I saw her do many daring and no doubt very dangerous and exciting things, in which she openly defied the laws of gravitation. But I shall never forget that lazy stroll she took that first night along the wire. I never saw her do it afterward and I think that she did it then just to put herself right before her fellow-workers and to show them that she was the greatest of all Cordonas - The Cordona. However that may be, I do know that when she had finished her casual promenade and dropped into her father's outstretched arms, the long breathless silence broke and the little body of stolid performers were on their feet shouting at her in every known language.
It was at the Wednesday afternoon rehearsal that I first met Julie Shipp, wife of the ring-master. The performance was now moving without a hitch, Shipp was running off the program with clocklike precision and the show was a finished product. Mrs. Shipp is a very pretty, very blonde young lady and is known to the public through a difficult equestrian act; to her own people she is the aristocrat of all the aristocrats of the circus world. She is a Lowanda and the Lowandas go back to a company of performers well known in Russia early in the eighteenth century.
The Shipps are typical of the best and most successful of circus people. For seven months they travel with the big show, then they return to their farm near Chicago and prepare for the winter season, when they travel in Europe or in South America with their own company. The past winter they spent in Panama and travelled with thirty people and six horses. When I met her, Mrs. Shipp wore a tan-colored dress, a huge hat with pink roses, and white glistening gloves. She was the only member of the company who was willing to talk of her profession, and then there was really little to say beyond the technical side of it.
"But you must have some amusements," I protested.
"Oh yes," she laughed, "with all our thrift the women like good clothes, and on Sundays we leave the cars and stop at a hotel as a sort of outing. We dress up, too, when we walk about the town before the evening show, because you see, even then, we are more or less on parade. In a general way, we haven't any time for cards and that sort of amusement, but it's a pleasant, healthy life. We travelled all last season without a case of any importance in the hospital and that seems rather curious when you remember that there were over a thousand of us and that we drink the local water wherever we stop and that we travel almost across the continent."
"The element of danger?" I asked.
Mrs. Shipp smiled at the thought. "I have been in the business since I was six years old and I have never been with a circus where anyone was killed. Occasionally somebody breaks an arm or a leg, but that is not serious. Of course the danger is always there, but we seldom think of it. It sometimes comes to us just before we go into the ring, but not often - once, perhaps, every few months - and it leaves us just as quickly as it comes. It is a very practical, methodical life. We have so little time to read and we travel too fast to meet many people. We have our own friends in the company. Sometimes we go a whole season without meeting all of the performers, but it is very much of a family life - mighty little sentiment and no romance."
"Anyhow," I protested, "you must have a certain sentiment for horses."
The aristocrat of all the circus world smiled and shook her head until the big pink roses in her hat nodded to me.
"Horses," she repeated, "sentiment for horses after you have ridden one in a parade and done two equestrians acts twice a day!"
It was after five o'clock when the rehearsal was over and the long line of performers filed out of the Fourth Avenue door on their way to their boarding-houses for a hurried meal before the dress rehearsal at night. Among them was The Cordona, completely surrounded by her man relatives. On my way up Fifth Avenue I saw a girl sunk in the deep cushions of her own little electric brougham and waving her white gloved hand to & passing friend. The owner of the hand had been conspicuous for her success the past winter in a musical comedy. She is not at all like The Cordona, except that both young women are about the same age and both received the same number of hundred dollar bills each week for entertaining the public. The lady in the brougham lives in a very beautiful apartment in the early forty streets and the rooms of the apartment are always filled with flowering plants and bunches of roses with absurdedly long stems. Her mother wears a great variety of expensive clothes, but is only permitted to show them at such odd moments as the daughter allows her to appear in the drawing-room. The father of the household stopped work when his daughter made her first success and now spends most of the day sitting at little tables in different Broadway Cafes, with other fathers. The girl, herself also in extremely good clothes, may be seen almost every day and evening lunching and supping at the more pretentious restaurants. She has a pretty taste for jewels and her favorite flower is the orchid. But, as I said before, what has the young lady of the electric-brougham to do with Victoria Cordona, the slack-wire walker, completely surrounded by her family, trudging uptown on her way to her boarding house or perhaps to the post-office to send a week's wages to the folks back in Texas.
CHS webmaster J. Griffin, last modified May 2006.
