On the Road With a Circus

by William Carter Thompson

Clowns uproarious all the time,

Clowns and more than you ever saw,

Clowns that make the world haw-haw.

The clowns’ band is near the end. In grotesque attire, the “musicians” blow and beat on the top of one of the chariots. The production is what the alliterator of the show calls “a slaughter of symphonies, a murder of melodies, a wrecking of waltzes, a massacre of marches, a strangling of songs, a total of terrific tonal tragedies!”

The inevitable hay wagon is in the column, and nimble acrobats toss lightly on its fresh-mown burden. Their costumes are bucolic throughout, but offer no impediment to their agile movements. Country boys look on and marvel. The clown in dilapidated wagon behind tottering horse is not absent. His countryman disguise is so perfect that his identity is not suspected. He narrowly escapes being run down by the big circus wagons; he is always in the way and impeding the smooth progress of the parade; he becomes involved in all sorts of plights, but emerges unscathed. It furnishes great fun for the spectators. Sometimes policemen threaten and oftener take him in custody. Then he tells who he is and the crowd roars again, this time at the bluecoat’s expense. Hilarity reigns wherever is his presence.

Above the shrill tones of the fife and the blast of the cornet and the clamor of drums and cymbals, rises the oft-repeated admonition, “Look out for your horses, the elephants are right behind!” A clarion-voiced equestrian rides up and down the line of bespangled magnificence with this warning to those who view the spectacle in wagon or saddle. A quick, keen, trained glance reveals to him the probable effect the “led” animals will have on each equine within eye and scent. He knows, too, what the man who holds the reins is not aware of, that the animal with the hump alarms horses more than his ponderous companion. Often the parade is brought to a standstill while this precautionary person insists that a horse displaying the initial signs of disquiet be removed to a place of safety, or, while with the skill of long practice he assists in subduing a beast whom the distant approach of the procession has already alarmed. Women are his bête noir. They have full faith in their horsemanship, they tell him, and, anyway, their horses have been thoroughly trained and broken. Then he is gently but firmly obdurate, accepts with good grace the denunciation to which he is subjected, but sees that the possibility of disaster has been removed before he permits the line to pass. He is a saver of life and limb whose services few but showmen appreciate.

Once the tents are pitched, no weather can be so unpropitious as to thwart the parade. Rain may fall in copious measurement; mud, perhaps, is deep to the knees. But on with the parade! A much weather-beaten and woe-begone lot of performers, to be sure, and a drenched and blinking lot of drivers, but all forgotten when the sunshine comes again. This display is what circus folk call a “wet day” parade. Women and children are excused, much of the finery is kept in the shelter of the tents, men wear mackintoshes and rubber boots, and protecting canvas hides the gilt and glory of the chariots. It has been advertised as “positive,” however, and the management must keep faith with the public or lose its confidence. Then, too, it serves to show some of the glory and fame of the organization, whets public curiosity and the possible return of clear skies will draw to the grounds the multitude which, without its promise, would have returned home for the day. Business instinct bids there be a parade without fail.

Down in the town the press agent is paying the newspaper bills for advertising, distributing tickets, and seeing to it that editors and reporters are put in good humor, and arranging as far as it is in his power that notices before and after the performances are complimentary. Sometimes he accompanies a body of reporters to an advantageous position and they survey the parade together. He buys cigars and refreshment—at the circus’s expense—and impresses his companions as being affable, courteous and a good fellow generally. They part company on fine terms of friendship, and he assures them that he will consider it a personal affront if they don’t all come to the show and bring their friends. Sometimes his hospitality has been so affecting that they will be tempted to write pretty things about him; that the “genial press agent” is with the circus, or, “the circus is fortunate to have so efficient an employee” and, following a description of his virtues. But his prudence begs them to desist, for he knows “the boss” doesn’t approve. The owner takes the view that newspaper space devoted to the circus itself is more to pecuniary advantage than an enumeration of the qualities of the press agent.

The keen eye of the general manager follows the parade on its tortuous journey. If there be accident or delay, or any other unforeseen trouble, he is at the scene promptly and takes command. A two-seated carriage follows the line. In it he, the press agent, and the circus detective are conveyed back to the lot. It is a convenience which dispenses with a hot, dusty walk or an uncomfortable journey in packed trolley cars.

The “$10,000 Beauty” was a parade feature of one of the big circuses for several years. The owner, a man deep in many schemes for advertising his tented organization, boldly asserted that he paid that amount of salary to a young woman who proceeded through the streets striving to live up to her reputation for grace and charm, on the back of one of the largest elephants. She wore a pained and anxious look as she clutched grimly to the animal’s canopied hide, and there was little appeal to aesthetic nature. Later she exhibited her harmonious proportions in the menagerie tent. She is now embellishing the variety stage, whence she emerged upon the circus world, and where, perhaps, her costly beauty is better appreciated.