[Fig. 1] gives a plan of a ring. It principally consists of a circular barricade about 30 inches high. In one portion there is a gap of four or five feet, which acts as an entrance (A, [Fig. 1]). If the ring can be so arranged that a door of the room in which the circus is being constructed, coincides with this entrance, much trouble will be saved. Should this be impossible, however, two or three screens can be arranged to form a passage from the ring entrance to the nearest door.
The method of constructing the barricade is explained in [Fig. 2]. A number of broomsticks are sawn into 30 inch lengths and fixed to heavy wooden bases in order that they may stand firmly upon the floor. A hole is then bored in the other extremity; this may be done by means of a red-hot meat skewer.
The position selected for the ring must next be marked out in chalk, and the wooden stands placed round it at intervals of about a yard. Then thread a piece of stout cord through the holes in the extremities of the uprights.
Having determined the exact circumference of the ring, purchase a sufficient length of cheap red flannelette to go completely round it. The cost of this material should be about 10 cents per yard, and its width exactly equal to the height of the stands. A number of large hooks must be obtained from the same shop, and sewn along one edge of the flannelette. It remains only to hook the material to the cord, as shown in [Fig. 2], in order to complete the barricade.
Fig. 2.—Construction of barricade.
The entrance must now be artistically draped with curtains, after the style of A, [Fig. 1]. It will then serve the additional purpose of a “stage,” upon which conjurers, jugglers, and other artists who do not wish the audience to see the back of their apparatus can perform.
The vexed question of “lights”—always a difficult problem in amateur theatricals—need not here be considered, the gas or electric fixtures already installed being sufficient.
A circus is never complete without its horses, so attention must now be paid to this department. It is hardly practicable to turn several full-grown animals loose in a circus constructed in an ordinary room nor is it probable that the reader’s purse will run to the importation of one or two Shetland ponies. But a whole stud of “circus horses” may be obtained at small expense by carrying out the following directions.
