The new North-west. [volume] (Deer Lodge, Mont.) 1869-1897, 1881-09-16
Some Accounts OF an American Snowman with
Little Insight Into the Show Business.
Toledo BIdds

In the philosophy of finance, but when it
comes to horse you are nowhere.
met one circus manager who is over here,
as he expressed II, ito secure talent" and
he proved delight. He was short, and very
thick, and wore a sack coat Of rough ma
terlal, and little mastiff followed him
about constantly. His hat and necktie were
something too utterly gorgeous for descrip-
ton, his face was of peculiar puffy purple,
and his nose blazed like a comet. And he
would sit and talk of his business by the
hour, keeping before him all the time glass
| of British brandy and water, which he pro-
nounced "goodish." You could be sure he
was Snowman as far as you could see him.
My first interview with him was something
like this:
~ shall have the biggest list Of genooine
attractions that ever was taken across the
Atlantic, and if don't astonsh the show
men of our great country as well as the peo
pie, I'm a sinner. | have got baby ele-
plant and genooine babulus, captured by
Stanley In the interior of Africa, at a great
loss of life, and | am after a performer SIGH
as the world never seen. She does an act on
the trapeze that is so risky that sooner or
later she must be killed. There amt any
doubt about it. have seen her. She runs
up a rope like a squrril, and jumps from a
horizontal bar twenty feet, catching hold of
her pardner's hands, and then plunges down
from his body, head-fust, at the frightful at
titood of seventy feet, catching rope within
twenty feet of the ground. If the lights are
ever wrong by half inch, or if she ever mis-
calculates a hairs breadth, she is a goner,
sure"
And the enthusiastic old gentleman rub
bed his hands in glee, as though the death
of a performer was a consummation most
| devoutly to be wished.
"Do people enjoy such perilous feats?"
ENJOY 'em. Enjoy 'em! Why, bless
| your innocent soul, feat amt nothin'-
won't dror a cent onless it's morally certin
| that the performer will break his neck. This
| woman Pm after draws crowds every night
because she must kill herself. The trick is
so dangerous that men make bets every night
she will miss her lucky and be carried ont a
corpse. I'm goin' to have that woman, no
matter what the salary is She does this ira
peze act, and then goes on In the first part Of
the minstrel entertainment after the big
show. Oh she's got talent into her."
"But if the performance is so hazardous,
and she should be killed, would 1t not entail
heavy loss upon you?'
"killed! Loss! Where was you born ?
My child, there never was a feat so danger
Gus that there amt thousand waitin' to at
tempt it, and they'll do it. When Mademo-
selle Zhoubert gets killed, as she will, I'll
hev to hold lev-vee to decide atwixt the
dozen who will want to take her place. I'll
select one of 'em, give her French name
700 can't get on in the perfesh with an Eng
lish name-and she'll 60 OH and do it, and
do it just as we'll. And then what an adver-
tisement it is. This will be about the size
of it:
"sThe management begs to state that since
the untimely death of Mamsele Zhoubert,
at Cincinnati, it was doubtful If another
lady competent to fill her place could be
found. The feat was so difficult, so danger
Gus, and required such arduous training aud
such wonderful nerve, that it was feared that
this leading attraction of the worlds aggre-
CATION would have To be omitted. There was
only one other such artist in the world
Mademoiselie Blanche, but she was engaged
at the Cirque Imperial Paris. The manage |
ment knows no such word as fail, and a |
commissioner was at once dispatched to |
Paris, with unlimited powers to treat for |
this stellar attraction, this acme of talent. |
At an expense that would bankrupt any |
other establishment, conducted by narrow
minded managers which advertise more and |
perform less, she was secured, and Is now |
with us.
'Mademoiselle Blanche not only per- |
forms the original feat of the sincerely |
mourned Zouhbert, but adds to it one so |
much more dangerous as to make hers seem |
insignificant and commonplace. Mademoi- |
selle Blanche will appear at each and every |
performance, all reports to the contrary not |
withstanding.'
"That'll fetch 'em."
Dangerous feats! Why, | run a whole |
season on lion that had once eaten keep |
er. The people come in crowds, expecting |
every day to see him make breakfast of his |
trainer"
"Was he actually dangerous ?"
then lost him. His wilder was actually in |
love with her husband, and she swore the |
animal shood be killed, and the people sided |
with her, and as the broot was gittin' old, |
and the KILN made sensation, did 1t. / |
insisted that the husband should have a gor- |
geous funeral.
"The woman kicked at the idea of |
funeral, for she sed there was nothin' to |
berry, as the lion had eaten her husband
"sBut amt the dear departed In the lion? |
If we berry the lion, don't we berry the dear
deceast? Cert
"And we did it, and il was gorgeous. We |
he'd a percesson, with all our wagons i'm 1t,
the regular street parade, only all the riders
he'd black scarfs on 'em, and the wagons and |
horses and elephants and SIGH was draped in
black-mourning goods Is cheep-and the
band played a dead march.
"The wilder was in an open carriage in |
full mournin', with a white handkerchief |
with black border, to her eyes, looking on |
his minatoor. There wasn't no minatoor, |
but she held case list the same.
That mite the canvas couldn't hold the |
people, and we run on that two weeks to |
splendid biz.
ain two weeks the woman got over her |
grief and went into the lion training line |
herself, ez 'Senorita Aguardiente, the Lion
Queen / give her some old lions to prac-
tice on, and In less than month she could |
do jist rs well as the old man. She was q
good woman, too. She rid In the Halt In |
the Desert, did the bar'l act, rid good pad
act, and Is now practisin' bear back. She
juggles tolerable, and does a society sketch
song and dance In q side show.
"When get talent, pay 1t and keep IL.
My Treasurer changes the names of my peo-
pie every season, so as to have always fresh
attractions. Oh, knew my biz.
"But that wuzn't all made out of that
afflictin' event. went and he'd a monument
made and sot up over his grave, and he'd
cut onto 1t this inscripshen:
Here Lies