News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1882-03-30
THE WAYS OF A CIRCUS.

W. o. Stoddard in March ST..
Nicholas, writes as foIlows:-The most
important business, after the tents are
up, is the formation of the "ring" and
the setting up of the gymnastic
machinery for the performance of the
acrobats.
The "ring" is generally little more
than forty feet in diameter, and it looks
like rude enough affair, but its prep
aration calls for both care and skill.
The ground for it is leveled with nicely,
the barrier, circular mound of earth OF
about 125 feet inside circumference, is
raised to a height of somewhat over
twenty inches on its inner face. 1t
must be thick, firm, and strong, to bear
the hard blows of horses feet or the
sudden leaning upon it of an elephant.
1t must, therefore, be banked, and
pounded with sledge-hammers, until no
strain to which it can be subjected can
break it down, and it must retain no
looseness or uneveness, to trip horse
or endanger the life of rider. It is the
work of few hours only, but there is a
man busy upon almost every square
yard of it while it is rising.
AS to the machinery for the acrobats,
simple as is the appearance of the
uprights and cross-bars, they must be
set up with especial care, so as to leave
no possibility of their breaking down.
The performer using them must be able
to trust his appliances absolutely, or he
could never have the nerve and conf
dence to delight the crowd at the risk
of his neck. All his feats of skill and
daring, moreover, have relation to the
exact distances at which he has practised
them, and there must be no variation
from those precise measurements in the
daily adjustment of his machinery. He,
or she, as the case may be, is sure
enough to meet with what are called
accidents" When "great show 2"
recently came to the city of Brooklyn,
a family group of three persons sat down
together in the breakfast tent. They
were acrobats of unsurpassed agilit y
and skill. A sad-faced woman, a young
man of middle size, girl just entering
her teens. There had been four of them
prior to recent performance, but the
star" an older girl, the most daring
of them all, had missed her motion -
in feat of uncommon peril, and had
fallen upon the receiving net. "She
was but slightly injured" all were told
who cared or thought to ask, but the
little group at the table knew that she
was dying. They performed their parts
that day, as skillfully as ever, though
with so much more weight than usual to
carry, but when the evening exhibition
was over there were, indeed but three
of them. The fourth had gone forever.
Such an accident may come to the
best-trained and most experienced per-
former, and yet it is a mistake to sup
pose that acrobats are necessarily a
short-lived race. The constant exercise,
the enforced temperance, the out-of-
doors life, amount, in fact, to careful
observance of well-known laws of health.
If a professional athlete escapes the
more serious disasters which are con-
possible to him, it is his own
fault if he does not remain for many
years man of comfortable body.
His worst perils do not come to him
in the "riug," but during the long
months when he is necessarily I'M
and when he has no
and pressing need for care
full training. For in this interval, he is
in danger of relaxing his habits of care
full living, and a very little over
will put out of order that
wonderful machine-his body-on the
perfect condition Of which depends his
power TO do the feats required of him.