THE CIRCUS DETECTIVE
To the circus organization with honest purpose the problem of dealing
with the horde of “guns,” “dips,” “grafters” and others of their
criminal ilk, who would fain be its daily companion, is perplexing and
formidable. Next season the duty of protecting the person and pocket
of our patrons will be a duty entrusted to new hands. Frank Smoot, for
many years the circus detective, is resting a long sleep in an Illinois
graveyard. A hemorrhage took his life as the circus was folding itself
away for the winter. The record of his acts and his virtues will ever
be inscribed upon the fleshly tablets of our hearts.
No person was ever more thoroughly equipped by nature and experience
for the hidden but tremendously valuable part he played in the daily
life with the circus. It was confidently averred of him that he was
familiar with the figure, face and method of almost every crook in the
circus world. No person of doubtful or dishonest purpose could remain
for more than a few hours in company with the circus without being
singled out and summarily dealt with. The treatment varied materially.
Its mildness or ferocity rested entirely with the wicked one’s conduct
after he received the order that he take quick passage out of vision
and return no more.
Mr. Smoot possessed great coolness of nerve and quickness of hand and
eye. In the smaller cities his appearance at the local police station
was almost simultaneous with the arrival of the circus train. He found,
generally, a commander whose criminal experience had been confined to
the peaceful country borders, who was entirely unaware whether or not
the community had been invaded by those who would profit by the lack
of worldly knowledge of the thousands of show-day visitors, and whose
precautions consisted of the swearing in of numerous deputies, who wore
conspicuously a bright badge of office in the happy assurance that it
would permit them free entrance to the tent. But the police chief was
always alive to the responsibilities of his position, offered aid, if
not advice, and was ready to act when his duty was pointed out.
Then the circus detective hurried to the railroad station and
scrutinized the passengers on all incoming trains. Here he sometimes
found the railroad watchdog. Many of the big railroads send their
detectives wherever the circus uses their lines. Their aim is to see to
it that those who patronize their service do so at no financial risk.
The peripatetic crook is quickly given to understand that he must use
other means to travel.
The thick crowds which awaited the coming of the parade was the next
scene of Mr. Smoot’s activity. Here was frequently uncovered the first
prey of the day, and seldom a morning passed that at least one cunning
lawbreaker did not feel the weight of a heavy hand on his shoulder, and
hear, sullenly, the word to march to the police station and undergo
the damp solitude of a county jail cell for twenty-four hours. Then,
when the circus was miles away on its course, he passed out to freedom.
Where were yesterday the throng of sightseers, which had filled him
with promise of great profit, were only the trodden peanut shells
and the accustomed monotony of the country town. The venturesome
crook who invaded the circus lot proper, was an especial object of
vigilance. Sometimes Mr. Smoot stood for hours on the top of the ticket
wagon, a stalwart figure outlined above the crowds, watching for his
professional enemies, where he could see on every hand; again he was
at the main entrance with a steady, critical survey of all who passed
under the broad spread of canvas.
A promise made to him in good faith by a crook had never been broken,
he used to say. I remember an interesting demonstration I witnessed of
his confidence in the word of a man to whom no crime was unfamiliar. He
had been discovered loitering about the grounds, and had been ordered
off with a threat of immediate arrest. He resembled much a country
gentleman of ample means and genial nature.
“Well, you got me quick,” was his ready remark, “but seeing as I came
all the way from Pittsburg and can’t catch a train back until night,
won’t you let me see the show? I pledge you I won’t do any ‘business,’
no matter how tempted.”
His ingenuous request was granted with a feeling of security in his
word by the detective, which the day showed was not misplaced.
The work of the circus detective, which calls for all his shrewdness
and courage is in dealing with the dangerous, determined characters who
disregard the warning to part company with the show at once, and who
rejoin the organization as soon as released from a preceding day behind
bars; men of plausible manners and engaging address who are ready for
any desperate chance. Upon these recalcitrants swift retribution is
visited. Formidable machinery which exercises a vague and terrible
power is put in motion. And thus it is that the moon, rising over a
country district, sometimes shines on the circus train speeding on
its journey, and its clear rays stream over a deserted lot, casting
strange shadows from a figure which lies as it has fallen, huddled in
an ungainly heap upon the wet grass. Dawn brings animation to the form
and to a hardened criminal a feeling of thanksgiving that he is still
alive, and a deep conviction that hereafter his world of “graft” will
be far removed from the circus and its primitive punishment.
The personality of circus men has changed materially for the better in
recent years. Time was when they invariably wore high silk hats and
clothes of many checks and hues. To be without diamonds on fingers
and in shirt and necktie was a standing reproach to the profession.
Nowadays the circus man affects little jewelry, and that unobtrusive,
or none, and in his attire and speech he differs none from the man
of ordinary commercial pursuits. He has established a reputation
for honesty and sobriety and is an element of order and decency. He
surrounds himself with associates of good character and business
integrity, and cherishes highly his good standing in the community.
The increased police vigilance and protection accorded has helped to
bring about this happy condition of affairs. In the past it was often
necessary to save life and property by meeting the attacks of roughs
and rowdies with equal violence and disorder. Circuses expected and
received little or no help from supine or frightened police, and
learned to fight their own battles. It has never been charged that
any circus was not fully capable of meeting force with force, and the
lawless affrays of the circus lot would form a bloody narrative. No
show in the old days dared venture forth without a squad of picked
fighters, and if the occasion demanded the whole encampment was
eager and ready for the fray. The war cry “Hey Rube!” had forceful
significance then. The circus man’s favorite weapon was the guy stake,
a shaft of wood used to support chains and ropes. An iron ring circled
one end, the other was pointed enough to penetrate the hardest ground.
Wielded by brawny workmen, experienced in its manipulation and skilled
by long practice in the art of rough combat, the instrument mowed down
the ranks of the enemy with deadly execution. Fists, knives and pistols
availed nothing against the onslaught. Fear and mercy were unknown in
those lawless times.
Years ago if murder was done the guilt was not always fixed upon the
circus employee. The hasty concealment of a body in the hay behind the
cages in the menagerie tent temporarily hid evidence of the crime. In
the darkness of the departure, there was a surreptitious burial. The
lifeless form was hastily conveyed under ground where had been the
circus ring and where the chances of discovery and disinterment were
remote. Many a victim of savage circus warfare rests in these unmarked
graves, and pick and shovel would solve the mystery investing scores
of circus day disappearances. Particularly in the Southern States,
soon after the war, were these sanguinary battles waged and with
fatal results. In justice to the circus men, let it be said that their
consciences gave no reproof and they felt no sense of moral guilt for
the reason that they were never the instigators of riot, that they
strove to quell trouble in its incipient stages and that they fought
for their lives and their employer’s property. They knew, too, that
public prejudice would prevent a fair legal trial and saw to it, if
human ingenuity could prevail, that no serious charge could be laid
against them, much less that of homicide.