The Good People Came Out to Show the Children the Animals A Good
Parade
If some man had cornered the children market day before yesterday, he
could have made a fortune.
Yesterday was circus day, and every deacon and elder and staid
business man in Houston who wanted to see Mademoiselle Marie Meers
ride barebacked and walk the tight rope, and had no kids of his own,
was out offering love and money for somebody's else to take along as
an excuse for going to the circus. In some New England towns large
families make a living by renting out their children to church members
for this purpose.
When a man tells you that he doesn't believe in the Old Testament,
just ask him what made him follow the band wagon and the steam piano
and the animal cages when he was a boy, and what makes him still sneak
into the circus and feed the elephant peanuts and stare the monkeys
out of countenance. It's nothing in the world but a feeling we all
inherited from Noah when he put on the greatest show on water for a
run of forty nights and as many matinees all over the world. The smell
of the gas jets and sawdust, the crack of the ring-master's whip, the
ancient jokes of the clown, and the wonderful linguistic performances
of the lemonade man are temptations that most of us strive to resist
in vain.
For many weeks Houston has been posted with the bills and banners of
Barnum and Bailey's show, and as the time drew nigh the small boy
developed insomnia and an unusual affection for indulgent uncles and
big brothers with money.
When the day came, the pleasure of anticipation developed into the
rapture of attainment.
All men think of their boyhood days with fond remembrance when the
circus comes. Even Susan B. Anthony falls into dreamy retrospection
when she sees the animals walking in the parade two by two, and she
recalls the time long, long ago when she first saw them go in out of
the wet during that dreadful forty days and nights' rain.
* * * * *
The street parade at 10 o'clock was the best ever seen in Houston.
The procession was nearly twenty minutes passing a given point. The
cages were new, and the horses, especially, were magnificent specimens
of their kind. The animals exhibited were in good condition as a rule
and some of them assumed to perfection their role of wild beasts. The
lions, however, appeared to be old, and were mere wrecks of the king
of beasts. The man who was in the cage with them cowing them down with
his eagle eye deserves the attention of the S. P. C. A. This show has
twenty elephants and but four tigers, but this should not discourage
good democrats. It is a long time yet before the election. The pageant
of the world's nations was immense. England, France, Germany, Turkey,
Belgium, and other nations were represented by cavalry attired in the
national uniform. America was properly represented by a float
containing the Goddess of Liberty on a throne, Uncle Sam in front,
sailors on the four corners, Jesse James and Richard Croker in the
middle. Some Roman chariots came next. We admire the enterprise of
Barnum and Bailey in this line, but we think they are carrying realism
a little too far when they procure Roman matrons of the time of Marcus
Aurelius to drive these chariots in our streets. Is the cigarette girl
exhausted or Newport society all engaged, that they cannot furnish us
with something better to look upon?
It is estimated by a level citizen that fully 15,000 human beings
witnessed the street parade, and probably 800 or 900 populists.
The crowd awaiting the parade was the same old circus crowd. The
streets were lined with pretty girls, dudes, merchants, clerks and
country folks. The woman chewing gum and dragging around a howling kid
was there; the woman with a baby carriage, receiving the curses and
reviling of the crowd with her usual complacent smile, was there; the
girl who ate popcorn and shrieked at every bite was there; the man who
said it was the same old thing he had seen forty years ago was there.
A chilly wind was blowing, and a cold, drizzling rain falling, and one
of the shivering Egyptians riding a camel bethought him of his sunny
native home and said to one of his countrymen, "Bedad, and Oi wish Oi
was in Donnegan's joint on T'irteenth Street long enough to put about
half a point of the craythur under me shirt," and the sad-eyed
Oriental at his left replied, "Py Cott, dot cold vint a man's pack
sdrikes like der teyfel, aindt it?"
The Mr. Bailey of this show is not, as some people think, Mr. George
Bailey of the _Dallas News_. Mr. George Bailey has nothing to do with
the circus, except to write their bill posters.
At 1 o'clock the doors of the Ethnological Congress were thrown open,
and the surging crowd went down into its pants pocket and drew forth
the price. The performance in the circus tent began at 2.
The animal exhibit was first-class, and many of the boys who had had
the d.t.'s recognized some old friends. In the center of the tent was
an international bargain counter on which were displayed families of
Hindus, Singalese dancers, Fiji Islanders, Ratmaliatmas, Samoans, etc.
The Post Man approached an intelligent-looking Samoan and said:
"Lovely and sad-hearted exile from the wave-kissed beach of Pacific's
coral-stranded isle, dost thou not pine for thy beloved far-off home?"
The large Samoan cast a wistful glance at his questioner and said in
his sonorous native tongue: "Cut it short, Cully. Yer can't
razzle-dazzle me. Get a movelet on your joblots, or I'll give yer a
wipe wid dis property battle-axe. See?"
This show has the distinction of carrying the most remarkable dwarf in
the world. The owners offer a considerable reward for his equal. He is
the largest dwarf now before the public, being nearly six feet in
height.
* * * * *
The pious and stately man who takes the children to see the animals
was very much in evidence. One of them, very sour-looking, with his
coat buttoned up high, said to a small boy he was leading by the hand:
"That animal you see, Willie, is the leopard, of which, as you know
the Good Book says, 'he cannot change his spots.'"
"But he can, though, papa," said Willie. "A minute ago he was way over
in that corner of the cage, and now he's up here in front."
"Do not be sacrilegious, my son," said the sour-looking man. "Come,
let us go into the tent where Mademoiselle Meers is riding eight
horses while in her famous Trilby pose. I wish you to study that noble
animal, the horse."
Another starchy-looking man, with a plug hat and white tie, had four
or five children with him. All paused a moment in the animal tent, and
he said rapidly: "My dear children, these are lions, tigers, monkeys,
elephants, hippopotamuses and camels. You are all familiar with them
from the pictures in your story books. Let us now go into the other
tent and view the human form, the noblest work of God, as Mademoiselle
Matthews does her act upon the flying trapeze."
In the circus tent there were three performances taking place in as
many rings at once. The acrobatic acts, tumbling and balancing were
good. The "refined contortion act" by Miss Maude Allington and Mr. H.
Wentworth was a revelation. Ladies and gentlemen who had heretofore
regarded the contortion act as something low and vulgar were surprised
and delighted with delicacy, tact and exquisite diplomatic finesse
with which these thorough artists tied their legs behind their necks
and did the split.
"Europe's greatest rider," Mr. William Wallett, was fine, and divided
honors with Rider Haggard, the assistant author of the programme and
show bills.
The ladies who were advertised to ride bareback more than fulfilled
their promised feats. They were barebacked, and also bare--that is,
were dressed something like surf bathers in Galveston.
Evetta, the only lady clown on earth, came into the ring and caused
roars of laughter by putting her hands in her bloomer pockets and
standing on one foot. She then did the excruciatingly funny thing of
sticking out her tongue at the crowd. Then, after convulsing the
audience by standing on the other foot, she retired. For that tired
feeling, see Evetta, the only lady clown.
* * * * *
A man who had evidently come up the street on the saloon side went
into the side show and seemed fascinated with the tattooed man from
Borneo, who exhibited upon his person a great variety of ornamental
designs, such as roses, landscapes, ballet girls, ships, etc. "Ladies
'n gent'l'men," he said, "come 'n shee zhis great phenomenon. Always
wanted see livin' picshers. Zis fus' livin' picsher ever shee. Set 'em
up all round; z'my treat."
The tattooed man leaned down and hissed in a low tone: "Say, stop dat
song and dance and git a move on you, Cully, or I'll tump you one on
de smeller. See?" =
* * * * *
It must be said of Barnum and Bailey's show that it is orderly and
well conducted. The gang of swindlers, toughs and confidence men who
generally follow circuses are not allowed to annoy the crowd. The
tents are large and the accommodations good. Their immense business is
conducted with perfect system and each man in the aggregation fills
his place in producing the harmonious working of the whole.
* * * * *
The performance itself was only the average circus performance, with a
great deal that was neither new nor remarkable, but with a feature
here and there that was far above the ordinary even in that line. The
trouble is in attempting to do too much. Had the programme been
executed in the old style, in one ring, it might have been too long;
but it would have impressed the public far more than when distributed
among three rings. The spectator becomes bewildered and catches a good
thing only now and then, while he misses possibly two or three other
brilliant acts. There could have been no complaint for want of
variety. There was a little of everything and all done at least with
the usual skill of the circus performer.
Several innovations were introduced, among them a female ring master
and a female clown. Trilby on horseback, a skirt dance on horseback,
and a serpentine dance on horseback are others. The water carnival, an
exhibition of high diving, somersaults into water and other aquatic
sports is perhaps the newest circus idea. It is given in a lake of
water, to use the fertile press agent's phrase, forty-two feet across
and six feet deep. In the menagerie are a number of new animals,
notably several new elephants, making the herd now number twenty-four.
The Ethnological Congress is all new, and those who have seen the
Midway Plaisances at the big fairs will be especially interested in
this peripatetic plaisance, which contains a curious assortment of
curious peoples. In its acrobatic department, the aerial swinging and
leaping and high trapeze work were very fine indeed; and with the
equestrian accomplishments of the Meeks sisters, particularly, when
the two rode one horse, constituted the most meritorious parts of the
performance. A notable feature also was the performance in the ring of
a herd of elephants, among other things going through a quadrille. It
is such a performance and, to quote the voluble agent again, such an
aggregation of panoramic novelties, with much that is old, that the
public generally will leave the big tents fully satisfied that they
have received their money's worth.
(_Houston Daily Post_, Wednesday morning, October 30, 1895.)