Gus was sittin' in. Circus people in the old days was considered social outcasts. Circus people was just like one big family, and was always a good lot, and always willing to help each other over the bumps. People don't look at it the way they used to, any more, but circus people is still clannish just the same. Modern methods and high specialization has made it a lot easier for the circus man.
Transportation is improved, and accommodations is a lot better than they was.
You don't have to be tough inside and out, to troupe with a circus nowadays. In the old days any handler of circus stock knowed how to mix up a batch of kerosene or paregoric liniment to dope an ailing animal. Nowadays the big show troupes a staff of veterinarians, and each valuable animal is watched as close and its diet figgered out as carefully as for the Dionne quints. The circus reached its greatest size in 1908. After that year they never got any bigger.