The circus business demands a small army of performers and attendants. Mr. Barnum in the coming season will have over six hundred persons in his pay. The "master of the sails" will have a force of one hundred and twenty-five tent-setters; the head groom, sixty grooms: the loading-master, one hundred "razor-backs"; the menagerie, sixty attendants; and the advertising department, seventy men always ahead of the show. There will be performers of all sorts, caterers, side-show men, etc., at least two hundred more in number. The master of the sails said that in eighteen minutes his force of one hundred and twenty-five men had taken down and packed in the wagons fifteen tents containing two hundred and sixty thousand yards of canvas, to say nothing of the ropes, poles, and other appointments.
A novel feature of the show the next time it starts out in a procession is to be "Mother Hubbard's Shoe." A shoe of gigantic size, mounted on wheels, and filled by the convenient children of the company, will take its place among the chariots and cars. This new attraction will unquestionably be a source of delight to all small people.
[TONY'S BIRTHDAY, AND GEORGE WASHINGTON'S.]
BY AGNES REPPLIER.
It was the great misfortune of Tony Butler's life to have been born on the Twenty-second of February.
There was no comfort in reflecting that there were doubtless plenty of other boys in the country who labored under the same disadvantage. The other boys might perhaps be better fitted for the honor, but for poor Tony the distinction was a crushing one.
In the first place, he had an older brother, and that older brother's name was George. Now it is generally conceded that one of a name is enough for any family; but when Tony was born on the Twenty-second of February, how was poor Mrs. Butler to act?
Not to have called him after the Father of his Country would have been, in that good woman's opinion, a positive slight to the illustrious dead. As long as her boy was fortunate enough to have the same birthday as our great President, it became her plain duty to give him one other point of resemblance, and then trust to time to complete the likeness.
It was a pity that they had a George already, but that difficulty could be done away with by calling her second son Washington. Washington Butler sounded well, and seemed all that was desirable; only there was just a little too much of it for every-day use. Sometimes the boy was called Washie, and sometimes Wash, and sometimes Wall, and sometimes Tony, until, as he grew older, and able to talk, he evinced a decided preference for the last title, and would answer to no other.