‘In the Hippodrome Department are THREE DISTINCT RINGS, wherein three sets of rival performances are taking place at the same time, in full view of all the audience. Here will be seen Performing Elephants, Horse-riding Goats, Educated Horses, Elk and Deer in Harness, Ponies, Trick Mules, and Bears, and three distinct Equestrian Companies (with six clowns), including by far the best Male and Female Bare-back Riders in the World, with numerous Athletes and Gymnasts who have no equal. Everything is perfectly chaste and unobjectionable. Its like will never be known.
‘The great street-procession, three miles long, takes place every morning at half-past eight o’clock. It is worth going 100 miles to see. It consists of trains of Elephants, Camels, Dromedaries, Zebras, and Elks in harness; nearly 100 Gold Enamelled and Cerulean Chariots, Vans, Dens, and Cages; Arabian Horses, Trick Ponies, three Bands of Music, and a most marvellous display of Gymnastic, Automatic, and Musical performances in the public streets.
‘Three full exhibitions will be given each day at ten, one, and seven o’clock. No one should miss the early Procession.
‘The Public’s Obedient Servant,
‘P. T. Barnum.’
The circus department of this unrivalled combination show is managed by Dan Castello, who is described in the bills as ‘a gentleman of rare accomplishments as a jester and conversationalist, whose varied and ripe experience in Continental Europe, and North and South America, render his services of great value.’ The company comprised Celeste Pauliere, the dashing bare-back rider of the Cirque Français; D’Atalie, ‘the man with the iron jaw,’ who appeared a year or two ago at some of the London music-halls; the Sisters Marion, who then appeared in America for the first time; Frank Barry, Vinnie Cook, Montenard and Aymar, Madame Aymar, Marie Girardeau, and Carlotta Davioli: and among performers less known on this side of the Atlantic, Lucille Watson, Angela (‘the female Samson’), Sebastian and Romeo, the Mathews family, Lazelle and Millison, the Bliss family, Bushnell, Nathan, Nichols, Lee, and Hopper.
The grand parade is a thing to be seen once in a life, and talked of ever afterwards. Here I must let the Prince of Showmen, as Barnum has been called, speak for himself; no other’s pen could do justice to the theme. ‘The grand street pageant,’ says one of his bills, ‘which heralds the advent into each town of the longest and grandest spectacular demonstration ever witnessed, is nearly three miles in length. Prominent among the grand and attractive features of the innumerable caravan, are the twelve golden chariots, eight statuary and four tableau, including the gorgeous moving Temple of Juno, 30 feet high, built in London at a cost of $20,000, the musical Chariot of Mnemosyne, the revolving Temple of the Muses, the great steam Calliope, three bands of music, and one hundred resplendent cages and vans.
‘These magnificently gilded Palaces and Dens, plated and elaborated by the most cunning artisans, after vivid designs and gorgeous impersonations from the Dreams of Hesiod, are drawn in the Great Procession by trained Elephants, Camels, Dromedaries, Arabian Thoroughbreds, Liliputian Ponies, herds of Elk and Reindeer in harness, and a gorgeously caparisoned retinue of dapple Steeds and Shetland Palfreys. They are of such rich and varied attractions as to excite the envy of a Crœsus or Bellerophontes.
‘The Great Procession will be interspersed with grotesque figures, such as automaton gymnasts,rich mechanical trapezists, globe and ball jugglers, comic clowns, and athletic sports, performing on the tops of the cages and chariots, in open streets, all the difficult feats of the celebrated living gymnasts. The different brass bands, musical chariots, Polyhymnian organs, steam pianos, and Calliopes, &c., are equivalent to one hundred skilful musicians. Persons anxious to see the procession should come early, as three performances a day are given to accommodate the multitudes, viz., at 10 a.m., also at one and seven o’clock in the afternoon and evening. Prof. Fritz Hartman’s silver cornet band, Herr Hessler’s celebrated brass and string bands, Mons. Joseph Mesmer’s French cornet band, and the great orchestra Polyhymnia, will enliven the community with their choicest rhapsodies, in alternate succession, while passing through the streets.’
The bill concludes with the following announcement, eminently characteristic of the people, and of Barnum in particular:—‘Tickets will be carefully but rapidly dispensed, not only by BEN LUSBIE, Esq., the “Lightning Ticket Seller,” whose achievement of disposing of tickets at the rate of 6,000 per hour is one of the sensational features of the great free show, but from several ticket waggons, and also from the elegant carriage of Mr Barnum’s Book Agent, who furnishes Tickets FREE to all buyers of the Life of P. T. Barnum, written by himself, reduced from $3.50 to $1.50.’