The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1883-05-18
THE CIRCUS MEMS SLOGAN.
WHAT OFTEN FOLLOWS THE CRY OF
HEY RUDE ="

hey ! RUBE J"
Used MS n Ruliyipg signal by the Circus EN-
ployes When NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. when
1t Has Been Raised.
w. G. Coup, the veteran circus mana
ger, says that the cry Hey RUDE!
Is Il terrible one to any mar who has
ever seen its consequences, and, he
says, 'it gives me IA cold feeling down
my back eve to hear it in converse
lion. 1t mean savage force, desper-
Gte combat, and too often death. a
man whJ has heard that yell sounded
in earnest, as | have, will not monkey
with it even in a parlor, among ladies
and children. | don't KIN w what its
org II was, or how it came to be so
universally recognized. l only know
that ever since l have been in the
business or known anything about it
that has been the circus mems slogan.
1t used to be equal to immediate dis
charge for a man to yellthat about my
show. Why, I'd rather have given a
thousand dollars any minute than hear
it from one of my men. Fire it up in
the air and it brings together, as if by
magic, two or three hundred men, all
there are about the show, generally
powerful and determined fellows,
armed, perhaps, only with stakes and
clubs, but stakes and clubs are terrible
weapons in the hands of such men,
all wild with excitement, and
ready for a desperate and pitt
less fight, fer they know that
Is what the rallying cry means. 1t
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. 1 say necessary for there
was a time-and sometimes it comes
nowadays-when circus men had no
other than to fight or be
Slaughtere |, and then they had to
stand together. Very seldom, if in
deed ever, have the circus men begun
a row. 1t was against all their in
terests to have one. Aside from the
very likely chance of being killed in
it, the best they could hope for would
be wounds, injuries and consequent ILL
ness in a strange and hostile COM
munity, or arrest perhaps where bail
would be out of the question and fair
trial very problematical and if they
were overcome by the mob, their tent
and wagons might be destroyed, and
the show totally ruined and all its
people thrown out of employment.
"Two causes are making circus
fights more are now than they for
merly were. The first is that the pub
lie is becoming more civilized, and
there is less local liberation for the
rough than there used to be. The
second is that shows now are of such
magnitude as to overawe the mob ele-
ment in most cases. 1t will have to be
a very numerous as well as a wicked
mob that will tackle a circus company
composed of 400 men presumably able
to take care of themselves in moderate
weather, and a big show nowadays
carries that many but in old times 1t
would be a big show that carried 100
men. The main tent was then nc
larger THIN the dressing-room of a big
show is now, and only eight or ten
canvasmen were required, whereas we
now have to carry seventy-five or 1OC
men to handle the enormous tents.
Twenty years ago theiight that fol
lowed a yell of Hey RubeI in Yer
mont, at Montpelier, l think, was the
cause of the State refusing for severa.
years to grant a license to a circus tc
exhibit within its boundaries. 1t was
by all accounts a very bad riot, and, o.
course, the circus men, being strangers
had to bear all the blame of it.
"In 1859, when Dan Rice's show
was exhibiting in a Southern town
the name of which 1 do not now re-
member, the big tent was all blown t.
pieces by a storm n night, and the
next day they had to show with just
the seats and side canva around them
and the sky overhead. Everybody
seemed to be content with the novelty
of the thing, paid for admissions
and enjoyed the show, with the eX
ception of two drunken ~loafers, whc
insisted upon seeing the show withou'
paying. The manager spoke pretty
roughly to them they gathered
crowd of their kind, and made an at
tack on the show with stones, gun
and pistols. The cry OF Hey! RUDE
had to be sounded for protection, and
a ferocious fight followed, in which
several men were killed on both side!
and many very severely injured.
"In Manchester, Iowa, some fifteer
years ago, Yankee Robinson's ant
Frank Howe's shows both landed il
the town at the same time, and a
pretty much all their people were &C
quaintances and friends, there was
general jubilee among them. Some o
them got a lite more 'obejoyful' juic
aboard than was good for them. !
town officer undertook to arrest
thief, got knocked down, swore that
circus man hit him, which may or ma
not have been the fact, and in a littl
while the riot grew to such proper
lions that the two circus companie
consolidated, and yelling Hey. RUDE
were fighting the who.e town and SUI