As an evidence of how circuses have increased in size, I will say that
the seventy or eighty _quarter_ poles which hold up the main tent of
the Barnum & Bailey shows are each larger than the _main_ pole used
years ago. The present system of lighting, which, by the way, I was the
first to use, is the patent of an Englishman, improved by an American
named Gale. It first took the place of kerosene lights, so far as
circus illumination is concerned, in 1870. In experimenting with
these lights, when I first introduced them, I several times met with
accidents which threatened to terminate my career. Once I purchased an
electric light plant with the intention of doing away with all gasoline
illumination, but was compelled to abandon the attempt after expending
$8,000 for a portable electric plant.
The item of tent stakes is quite a formidable one. Fitted with iron
rings, they cost about fifty cents each, and hundreds of them are
required by every circus. Harnesses require an outlay of from ten to
twenty-five dollars each, according to decoration and material.
The draught horses used by circuses vary in price, some of them being
purchased cheap from horse markets; but I have always found that the
best I could get were the most economical. Those bought by me averaged
$200 each; the usual circus horse, however, costs much less, and so
long as it does its work all right the main purpose is answered, for,
in passing through the streets, its faults do not attract the attention
of the ordinary observer, but only that of the typical horseman. Ring
horses, whether for a "pad" or a "bare-back" act, must have a regular
gait, as without it the rider is liable to be thrown. They are
frequently and generally owned by the performers themselves, and I have
known a crack rider to pay as high as $2,000 for one whose gait exactly
suited him. The performing "trakene" stallions brought from Germany by
Mr. Barnum cost $10,000, and my first troupe of educated horses, ten in
number, were purchased at the same figure. These, however, were
unquestionably the best and most valuable ever seen in a circus.