Mexico weekly ledger., 1878-06-27
THE CIRCUS.
BY GAIL

The bare footed milk boy is slowly
sauntering by, his newly secured tin
pail glimering in the sunshine and his
wide eyes fixed on the c~latter, just
rounding the knoll beneath the elms
one, two, three, four pairs of horses,
as different from the sober steetls in
yonder pasture as silk from yarn
gay high stepping horses, that look
as if the map of the world was wrap
ped around them for skin, the con-
tinent tinted roam, the seas white ::
and behind them long two story
wagons like boxes on wheels, gayly
painted, fast-closed. But we know
it is the circus and that those gorge
ously colored boxes inclose a howl
ing chaos of bears and tigers, and
that somewhere along the road, at
some suspicious hour some happy
person will see the elephant, a very
sleepy circus it always is at this time
OF the morning; but it sets the whole
village wild with enthusiasm.
Then the hand bills come and add
fuel to the fame. The county paper
takes up the parable and flares out
with chariots and horsemen-and
horsewomen too-in every attitude OF
danger and daring and the odds are,
you go. If you have children you
say it is to please the children. If
you have none you say it is to e the
crowd. But it is not. 1t is to see
tie circus. You feel a little shame
faced to march up on the village green
and buy ticket of the man who has
made an office of the real of his wag-
on, but you do it. Hosts Of minor
tents have colonised in the vicinity OF
the mammoth tent, but you shun side
issues and plunge at once into the
lions den and take heart. For no
loud advertisement nor monstrosity of
drawing a conceal the fierce mag
niicence of a lion, the treacherous
tsoftness of a panther Or the graceful
beauty of a leopard. They circle
their impatient round-the free, wild,
fettered souls and bring into this
mean area the grandeur of a numidian
wilderness. Before them, keepers
walk back and forth in dingy scarlet
coats reciting to their ever shifting
audiences choice bits of natural his
tory with an impressive face and g
monotonous voice that make the
growing and roaring of the other
beasts seem oratorical and intelli,
gent.
Here is the huge white polar bear
Dangling his long hair OH the floor
and painting with heat in spite of the
four hundred pounds of ice where
with he is daily olockaded and the
hogsheads of water that constantly
keep him wet. Here is the prOwlin9
hyena-that ghoul among the beasts
that horror of ingenious youth.
Here in the middle of the tent lie the
eamels mild and ugly, and here il
that mountain of animated nature the
elephant. Is he an elphant? Is he
not a mass of baked mud that lived
once among the Megatheriums and
Ichthyosauruses, when life was big
and slow, and Pokey has come down
to us by mistake as one born out OF
due time? He is 80 utterly unbeautiful
and he appears to know it, poor fel-
low and looks meek and d%epreceating
out of those small sidewise modest
eyes of his. What large ungrace-
full legs! What an unwieldy head!
and why will they make him dance,
when dignity is his only role. And
what does an elphant think of being
nude to climb up and stand on a tub
just large enough TO give room for his
four feet. If an elphant a be said
to have feet where the appearance is
that his legs has simply come to an
end.
Before you have time enough to
see the baby elephant who is bat half
as homely as the other, because only
Ealf as big, or the baby lion who is
as fierce at heart rs his jungle born
papa or the ostrich who al carry
o full sized man on his back and run
nine miles an hour, says the exhibit
tor in his monotone, or the quilts upon
the fretful porcupine, or the always
funny monkey. You must go and
see the performance which does not
rank among the high arts but which
is often good deal higher than is
quite comfortable to look at. 1t is
harder to defy law than organize law.
Nature established %gravitation, but
she must establish something. If a
stone does not go down when drop
ped it must go somewhere. But
having made a point of putting peo-