National Republican., 1883-05-11

INC bJeel~Clhu hOulun line. benlno neI III
order, though thousand years before her in
time, rides the Amazon Hippolyte in her
Phrygian war car, another trophy to Hellenic
prOwess. How the old-time memories troop
through your brain as you sit and look
Here is the reindeer of the Lapps. And
behind him comes the fairest fancy of the
Germans SOUL so fair, so pure, so beautiful
that they stole IL from some Kymry clan and
claimed IL as their own-Santa Claus, the
genius Of childhood. The sun shines warm
on the outside of the canvas; but where the
good saint goes the pine cones fall out-tho
larch tree shakes the snow from its fringe
like boughs. But he passes on, and in rapid
procession follow Bedouins and Indians and
lamas, and all varieties of strange animals;
the wild Nubians from the caverns and cata-
racts of Syene, gazing on civilization with the
same eyes of wonder through which the chill
dren at the circus gaze upon them; and all the
oriental splendors whose realities not even
the thrice-burnished magnifcence of a circus
advertisement can fully describe.
Lol There is q stir within the air and a
murmur around the amphitheater. 1t is
Jumbo, giant of elephants. Before him
moves an elephant with her baby, who look
like pigmies; behind him q monstrous
beast, who would be called mastodon
anywhere except so close TO Jumbo. The
latter towers high above his fellows, like Saul
above the prophets, not merely head and
shoulders, but ears and tusks above them all
He walks around the arena like an animated
| three-story brick house with mansard roof
and flaps his ears incessantly, as the wind
flaps the mainsail Of a sloop. High up on
his roof are perched dozen children,
happy in their halffearful, half-joyful,
wholly enviable ride. Pass on Jumbo !
After thee the delugel Not even
Goliath Goshen, who has to stoop in order to
| put his fingers on tall mans hat-not even
the last of the Aztecs nor the wild Sioux Of
the plains, nor the Iulhs, remnants of Ulande,
can charm after thee. Let the procession go
by. There is something more wonderful still
There on the stage, in the center of tho great
circle, is a ark-haired, dark-eyed woman,
1.-the as a serpent, all sinuous grace, all
swarthy beauty, her eyes afiame with
| glow, her cheeks dusk with tho mantling
blood Of the orient south-it is she,--one of
those serpent girls sent by the Dravid King
of the Deccan to Alexander the Great. For
10! out of box on the stage she draws a
snake, q huge writhing rope Of sinuous life,
and wraps him around her neck. The ten
thousand spectators hold their breath as they
gaze. And you marvel at the strangeness of
symmetry with which his curving tail melts
| in 10 her flowing locks. Which is curling hair,
which is writhing serpent you cannot tell !
| And she folds him, the Shiny, sliding, slip
perry monster writhing around her person with
slipping stealth, till she brings his fat hood
| like head upon her bosom, and his bright de-
moniac eyes glitter and glisten Immediately
over her heart! A lamia, you say, a serpent
| girl, whose form is human, whose soul is
snake. The old Hellenic sailors were right
when they said the Pelasgians we're sorcerers,
who were waited upon by ghosts, who called
up the dead from dofiled graves to do their
unhallowed bidding, and who turned serpents
into women, aud men into mules. Who
can doubt the old Greek story, when here in
the circus, tho only relic Of these so-called
Pelasgians, these Etruscans, that has como
down to us, we see deadly serpent coiled
in loving caress upon beautiful woman's
bosom, and limp and loving in the touch of
her fingers, in the glance of her eye, in the
low caressing tone of her grooming voice!
Snake after snake, each one more musky
and deadlier, each one more charmed by the
sorceress, till she ties them all together
in huge rope and, putting them away, glides
off tho stage, a lissome, fascinating, beautiful
sorceress. You know now how Lycius felt the
eve of his bridal with Lamia just as the cold,
stern eyes of Glaucus pierced the human
| shell of the serpent BRIDE
And room for the loveliest gymnast that
ever swung by shapely toes from little rings
forty feet in mid air Little brown haired
Maggie Glare, who looks like child but
climbs like devil, displaying grace and q
beauty, however, that belong only to lovely
women. How she runs up that rope--so easily,
so quietly, so gracefully And now she swings
by her toes; now she holds by her teeth (;
now she spins round like humming
top, hanging only from q single cord in her
girdle, face downward, swimming the air as
the fish swims the water, and then sliding
down the rope till you become utterly fasci-
mated. So perfect is the grace, SO complete the
ease with which she does these daring
trapeze acts that we sit calmly on and
cannot realize how daring and how dangerous
are the teats.
Tho aftarnoon ,veara on and tho circus
holds you still, with all tho feats that skill
and strength and agility can do when backed
by will and intelligence, and at last the hip
podrome races come on. BY this time your
head is in a whirl. The circus has been too
liberal. Ithas poured out n largeness Of action
that would set up in first class running order
dozen OF circuses. You suffer from an
embarrassment of riches. And yet, like
the little boy on your right and the girl be-
hind you 90, don't 90 yet, mamma; Just one
more, please" Yet you welcome the races
with fervor Blooded steeds these; every fell
low with pedigree, and most of them with
the pasterns of the blue grass region. The
chariot races-well, they are grand, and you
! hold your breath as the four horses abreast
come laundering by. But the sport becomes
moro sympathetic as the double team
| Roman standing race comes, the horses
in each pair close to each other, dash
ing around the course with lightning speed
anu Une L lueT stunning Wltu u IOOU Oh eHCn
animal. Hurrah! the yellow-striped jacketed
rider wins. Now, make way for the monkey
race! Here are ponies, each one ridden by a
monkey! How swiftly the ponies dash, how
gallantly the monkeys stick. All! they are
lashed on, they don't sit of their own
accord, And the 'creech creech" of the
poor little fellows, frightened almost to
death, sounds above the din, and the poor
scared half human faces seek with the stare
of absorbing terror to read a promise of help
to them. Here and there some large hearted
man, some tender woman, says, THAT is
cruelty TO animalsW But the crowd cheers
frightened monkeys. All! Etruria, the
defect in your character, the canker ut your
heart, read upon your tombstones three thou
sand years afte your death and burial, still
tingly or unwittingly shows in every circus
just as it did when Commodus entered the
arena and butchered the helpless gladiators
there! That one defect is the little teardrop
of earth that clings TO all our flowers, that
trail of the serpent over all OF the few bios
SONS of Eden left us after the fall. And the
audience laughed at the funny sight, and the
| frightened chatter of the terrified mon
keys only added zest to the clamor, Just
as the Roman populace applauded killing
thrust or a fatal stab. 1t is true that but few
in the audience suspected that the monkeys
were frightened, but with their pitiful cry
sounding in your ears and their appealing
glances lingering in your sight you withdraw
| into the open air. The spell of the circus is
| broken and Won are clad 10 GET awav