There were agents so utterly unscrupulous as to receive pay from opposition shows for disclosing to them information that should have been jealously guarded, even betraying the advance route. I knew one agent who was an expert telegraph operator and able to take messages by sound. He would scrape acquaintance with the regular operator and pass his spare time in the telegraph office secretly taking our messages as the latter were being sent over the wire, the local operator being ignorant of the loafer's telegraphic skill.
IDLE BILL POSTERS
These opposition fights greatly benefited the local bill posters and were frequently urged on by them. Sometimes a show would send a brigade over the country at night, placing its own dates on the paper of its rival, thus getting all the advantages of the first show's paper. Sometimes the indolence and laziness of my own men have annoyed me greatly. I am reminded that, while my advance brigade was billing Texas, one of my agents became utterly disgusted with the sleepiness of his men. They were mainly of corpulent build, and their captain actually sent me this message:
"Waco, Texas, July, 1881.
"W. C. Coup,
"Sturtevant House, New York City:
"There is one more shade tree in Texas; send another fat man to sit under it."
On numerous occasions I have had to pay dearly as a result of the sharp practices of unscrupulous people, and it is a well-known fact that a circus man has to deal with a great many of this class. Our advance agent always engaged the lots on which we were to exhibit, and he did so at Austin, Texas, renting the necessary ground at a most exorbitant figure. As usual, he gave an order on the company which was to be paid immediately on our arrival. But the owner, or pretended owner, inserted a clause in the agreement that the lots were to be used if still in the possession of the signer. Immediately on our arrival the bill was presented, and as promptly paid. Imagine my surprise when, as the show opened at night, another bill was presented for $150. It seems that this sharper had made a fraudulent sale of one of the center lots on purpose to swindle me. Of course I paid it, under protest, in order to enable the performance to proceed, as, anticipating a refusal on my part, they had illegally attached some valuable ring stock.
Some years ago when George Peck was struggling with Peck's Sun, long before it had been recognized as a "leading comic paper," I visited Milwaukee with my show. My invariable instructions to my agents were to advertise in every paper, but especially to place an extra advertisement in all young papers struggling for recognition, provided, of course, that they had merit. For some reason, or through oversight, George Peck's Sun had been entirely forgotten. Nevertheless, I found on reaching Milwaukee that Peck had, on several occasions, good-humoredly alluded in his columns to my coming, and had not "roasted" me, as many other editors so slighted would have done. Accordingly I sent him a check which would have more than paid for the advertising he should have had but did not get. To my surprise he returned the check, saying I owed him nothing. I declined to receive it, and once more sent it to him, telling him not to come any of his "funny business over me," and to reserve his jokes for his paper. This brought him around to my hotel, and I was delighted to become acquainted with one of the cleverest men I have ever met. Later he became Governor of his State.
COURTESY OF EDITORS