A general agent estimates for me that the score of pretentious circuses employ, during at least seven months of the year, an average of fifty bill-posters each, making a total of six hundred men, outside of agents, contractors, inspectors, etc. To properly transport, supply, and provide for these employees it requires not less than thirty-six advertising cars, which, in the course of a season, cover every part of the American continent and the better part of Europe. These men post upward of one hundred and seventy thousand sheets of paper daily, and as their display of paper usually has a thirty days’ showing for each day’s exhibition, it is safe to estimate that from five millions to five millions two hundred thousand sheets are in sight for six months of the year. To-day the public often measures the value of an enterprise largely by the size and character of its posters. The development of poster printing and bill posting is due largely to the demands of the circus. Not all the commercial advertisers put together use posters so liberally as do the combined circus interests. The requirements of the circus built the boards and the results obtained forced the business to become a permanent and recognized factor in active commercial life.
One big circus used in a season seventy-seven kinds of posters, varying in size from one to sixty sheets and let loose on the public twelve publications, from a four-sheet to a twenty-page courier. They had a total edition of five million four hundred thousand copies.
The elevated standard of morality among circus men and women is a revelation to one who lives with them from day to day and is their close companion. The atmosphere and environment seem charged with health and happiness, virtue and vigor. Drunkenness is not tolerated in any form. Immediate discharge, no matter who or what the rank of the offender, is its penalty, and except in isolated instances among the canvasmen there is seldom provocation for punishment. Of other vices which are prevalent in many walks of life there is no evidence. The very nature of the business, with its claims on brain and body, forbids immoral or vicious excesses. Those who indulge in them are looked upon with coldness by their associates and made to feel themselves delinquents. Gambling is strictly prohibited, and fines are imposed upon the employee who is heard using profane or vulgar language. The women of the circus are not permitted even to engage in conversation with any one not directly connected with the show. Most of them spend a few hours each Sunday in church. A fine awaits the luckless man caught exchanging words with an outside woman. It is the effort and aim of the management, too, to inculcate a spirit of good-fellowship and enduring affection, founded upon mutual respect and esteem. It demands that all be obliging and civil, answer questions politely, assist patrons in distress, smooth ruffled tempers, in short, make people who go to the circus feel at home, have a good time, and want to come again.
Circus folk, like sailors, are perhaps the most superstitious people in the world. They have numerous curious beliefs and all possess pet superstitions. Disease, disaster and death are presaged in their minds by signs and wonders. Few are without amulets and charms. Four-leafed clovers, made as pendants in silver or glass, and rabbits’ feet set in silver are favorites to ward off evil. Many have horseshoes nailed to their trunks for luck. To see three white horses in succession and no red-headed woman is a forerunner of good luck. So, too, they declare, is the sight of a boxed corpse in a railroad station as the train rolls in. It is an ill omen to catch a glimpse of the death receptacle when leaving a town. Tapping a hunchback on his hump is sure to result favorably, and a white speck showing on the finger nail indicates auspicious things. The appearance of a white foamy spot on the surface of a cup of coffee or tea denotes “money,” and should be at once swallowed intact. To open an umbrella in a house is sure to result in a shower of trouble, and one’s future is risked by going under a ladder. Breaking a mirror is significant of death and seven years’ ill-luck. If undergarments are put on wrong side out, it is tempting fate to change them until removed for the night. A peacock’s presence is fraught with promise of dire evil, and a stuffed bird or a fan of its feathers bodes ill for the owner. To eat while a bell is tolling for a funeral will bring misfortune. The hooting of owls at night is ominous of death. Bad luck may be expected if a mouse gnaws a gown. To rock an empty cradle will entail injury to the child who should occupy it. Salt spilt at the table is a warning of a quarrel, unless a pinch of the mineral is promptly thrown over the right shoulder. Stray cats have their terrors, but a black one is welcome.
Many performers invariably go into the ring putting the right foot forward. If they neglect to do this they back out and re-enter. All believe a cross-eyed man should never be permitted inside, the tents; evil times accompany him. Few foreigners fail to cross themselves before performing, and nearly all wear strange charms. Many circus people regard a color or a combination of colors as a hoodoo. None would venture to cross a funeral, and I have seen those who turn their backs until a death procession has passed out of sight and hearing. All believe Friday an unlucky day, and are sure there are fortunate and unfortunate hours in every day. If Friday falls on the thirteenth day of a month, it will bring misfortune, for thirteen cuts a wide swath in the profession.
In marked contrast to the popular notions of the rank and file of circus men is the practice of Mr. James A. Bailey, who founds his business conduct along lines tending to discourage superstition. Friday is his accepted choice upon which to make an important move—the Barnum & Bailey show left America on Friday—and he welcomes the figure 13 in any transaction. His marvellously successful career perplexes credulous associates.
The slang and colloquialisms of the circus form a secret language in themselves, a collection of jargon, racy, pungent, and pregnant of meaning, and always used in familiar conversation. “Stall,” as noun or verb, is a popular and widely employed expression. It indicates anything tending to conceal real intention, a confederate who diverts attention, an accomplice under cover. For instance, “I am stalling for a walkaway,” if I refrain from notifying a customer that he has forgotten his change. The “walkaway,” a flurried, absent-minded, or hurrying person who leaves his return money behind, is legion and a constant source of joy to the ticket-seller. “Nix” is a significant circus watchword, whose utterance generally is the signal announcing the approach of some one in authority or who is not a confidant. It is used, too, as the curt form of request to desist from word or deed. The exhibition place is never anything but a “lot” in circus parlance, and the organization itself is referred to as the “show.” A “snack-stand” is the improvised structure at railroad depot or show ground where a hasty bite of food can be obtained. The men who sell candy, popcorn, lemonade and the like are “butchers.” The tents are “tops” in the circus vocabulary. The canvas under which the performance is given is known as the “big top,” the eating tent as the “cook top,” and so on. One might travel a season with a circus and not hear the word tent mentioned. The side-show is the “kid show,” as the vernacular of the profession has it.
Employees are “working” whether driving stakes, throwing somersaults, or sitting on exhibition as a curiosity. The broad license of the word is amusing to the stranger who hears the Albino, whose sole occupation is to receive the stares of side-show visitors, remark that “she didn’t work yesterday,” but remained in the car all day. The rallying-cry, “Hey Rube!” has become a vague memory among modern circuses. Ample police protection is assured nowadays, the character of circus employees is higher and the discipline is sterner, and the days of sanguinary encounters among themselves or with town rowdies are gone forever. The inaugural procession around the tent is the circus man’s “tournament.” A “grafting” show is the circus with dishonest motives, as described in another chapter, and its “fixer” or “squarer” is the man who makes the corrupt arrangement with town officials. In circus dialect “yap” and “simp” indicate a credulous rustic who is easy prey for sharpers.