Connecticut western news., 1883-06-06
CANVAS AND SAWDUST.
THE CRY OF ssHEY! RUBE!''
The Battle Call of the Circus Nlan-A Few Ot the Occasions Upon Which it has
 Been Raised.

Dover, Del, upon the people of O'Brien's circus, and the question was raised whether or not the cry of, "Hey ! Rube v is, as was affirmed in the pub lished ""accounts of that occurrence, the circus mems rallying cry for war. MT. W. O. Coup, the veteran circus manager, settled it. Just as he came in, some one of the party tested him by an exper- mental yell of "Hey Rube p at his back, and his instantaneous jump and look of combined alarm and ferocity were reply enough for even the most skeptical. He said
 "That is terrible cry to any man who has ever seen it's consequences, and it gives me cold feeling down my back even to. hear it in conversation. It means savage force, desperate combat, and too often death. A man who has heard that yell sounded in earnest, as I have, will not monkey with it even in parlor, among ladies and children. I don't know what its origins was, or how it came to be so universally recognized. oply know that ever since I have been in the business or known anything about 1t, that has been the circus mems slogan. It used to be equal to immedi- ate discharge for man to yell that about my show. Why, I'd rather have given 8 thousand dollars any minute than hear 1t from one of my men. Fire it up in the air once and it brings to- gether, as if by magic, two or three hun- cred men, all there are about the show, generally powerful and determined fel- lows, armed, perhaps, only with stakes and clubs, but stakes and clubs are ter rible weapons in the hands of such men, and wild with excitement, and ready for desperate and pitiless fight, for they know that is what the rallying cry means.
 "It signifies to them. You have to fight for your lives, and to stand by one another or be killed Thank God, it is less necessary now than it used to be in early days of circus life in this country. I say necessary for there was time and sometimes it comes nowadays when circus men had no other recourse than to fight or be slaughtered, and then they had to stand together. Very sell dom, if indeed ever, have the circus men begun row. It was against all their interests to have one. Aside from the very likely change of being killed in it, the best they could hope for would be wounds, injuries, and consequent illness in strange and hostile community, or arrest perhaps where bail would be out of the question and fair trial very pro- blematical; and if they were overcome by the mob, their tent and wagons might be destroyed, and the show totally ruined and all it's prople thrown out of employment
 "Yes, I've heard Hey! Rube ' 8 good many times. heard it once at Manchester, N. H., when I was running the Barnum show. On the morning of our arrival there found hastily con- structed shed, used as a whisky saloon, on the lot we had contracted for. I
 asked the man to remove 1t, but he re-
 fused, and defed me to remove it. l
 found that he was backed up by fear
 ful crowd of roughs, and the Marshal oi
 the town told me that I had better not
 get into row with the saloon keeper
 so rather than to have disturbance ]
 let him remain, but requested him not to allow any of the circus employees tc
 have liquor in his saloon. He prom. ised that he would not, but he lied, as I subsequently, discovered. All day my men were getting liquor there, coming in contact with the town roughs, anG , gradually the trouble grew.
 "Just before supper saw 8 gang O :, fully hundred men, armed with clubs ,, come out of the woods near the hors
 tents, which were some little distanc ' from the others. Somebody raised tn old yell of Hey Rube ! and in min = ute the circus was ready for attack. Il ' those days nobody carried pistol, in tn /, North, at least, but we all had stake = and clubs. managed to get betwee . the two crowds, and, causing barley o detained them from fighting until an ez . tra force of the local police got on tn e ground, and so the trouble was avertet e It was one of the very few cases in whic l. I have heard of that rallying cry bein l: sounded without bloodshed following
 quickly. In Lewiston, Maine, it we
 raised again, and we had terrible figh
 broken bones, split skulls, and all tht k sort of thing. No, I didn't discharge tt n man who yelled Hey Rube ' on eitht s occasion, because I could not find o1 t. who he was.
 T. "Only last year when my show was Il Gainesville, Ga., happened to be ava ,e from it just at the time, and despera- D. riot occurred that might possibly ha, m been prevented. even there, if Ihad bee IS present. The Marshal of the town, D. regular rufian, came up to the cars whe 'n men were loading up the show, ar ly cracked one of them over the head vii ,n a club. He got hurt. Then some in his friends clipped in, mob gathere Id Hey Rube ? was shouted, and whe " the scrimmage was over three dead mt lg were found lying about. In that fig n. firearms were used, as we'll as clubs al d. stones, but the circus held it's own. ut "At La Salle, Ill,, last season, n Id people came awfully near having 8 de ve perate fight with the quarrymen, wi he were determined to have it, but I ha gn pened to be on the ground, and manag a. to control my men. If I hadn't the us womb have bean an internal riot for n