There are at least two features of the show business which are seldom
exaggerated, no matter how capable the showman may be at blowing his
own horn or how brilliant may be the accomplishments of his advertising
man as a professional prevaricator. These features are the great cost
of stocking a menagerie and the danger attending the capture and
handling of the savage creatures. Few people not in the business have
any idea what it costs to get together and maintain a large collection
of animals.
Perhaps the only reason why these phases of the business have not been
magnified by the eloquent pens and tongues of the advance men is
because they are well-nigh incapable of exaggeration. The plain truth
concerning them is as astonishing and sensational as would be any
addition thereto, and consequently the advertising men have been
tempted to regard this as a field which does not invite a display of
their special talents.
I know of one showman who paid $10,000 for a hippopotamus. This figure
would have been as effective for advertising purposes as twice that
amount--and yet I do not recall that this price was made much of in the
advertising put out by the proprietor. At the time I went into the
great New York Aquarium enterprise I remember having one day figured up
the amount which I had paid Reiche Brothers, then the leading animal
dealers of the world. It reached the neat sum of half a million
dollars. This, however, was but a fraction of the fortune I had been
called upon to invest in wild animals. Besides buying from other
dealers, I had been interested in several independent animal hunting
expeditions to Africa. This was a tremendously expensive experience,
and led me to a willingness to pay the very large profits demanded by
the established animal houses rather than attempt to go into the
forests and jungles with my own expeditions. These houses were able to
employ educated Germans who delighted in the adventure, and they saved
us time, anxiety and money.