The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-01-29
A Circus Giants Experience.

James Gilbert, who stands just feet inches
high in his stocking feet, and who was in the
professional giant business for years, swooped
down on New York recently from Scranton. Pa.
MIR. Gilbert has had some curious experiences
Here is one of them, as he told it to Sun re-
porter:
II thought would 60 into the show busin ess
for myself in 1884, said the giant, so bought
tent 40 by 60 feet, and got a company to-
gether had fire-king. and fat woman,
and a snake-charmer, and several other
talented persons twelve in ALL was adj
vised to go south, and did So We played to
poor business, and down in Florida we got
stranded. sold the tent, and we walked from
town to town at night playing in the daytime
We ate oranges from the trees as we went
along Some nights we could only find sour
Charley Fox, the fire king:
This thing has gone far enough. Wen
have to work scheme to get out of the coun-
try. Charley agreed to help me- We had to
send our baggage by rail while we walked
Every day | would pay the charges and get it
out for our show, and then recheck it at night
for the next town. The day after the fire
king and had agreed to work the railroad we
found all the baggage on the platform of a
little country station we were to show in
Nobody was looking, and | told the fire king to
take his little box from the baggage. and go
into the woods and smash it. He did so Then
hunted up the station agent and asked him
for the baggage,
''Of course there was one piece short told
him that IL contained all our wardrobe, and that
we couldn't give our show without it, Well
sir he got hold of the superintendent of that
railroad, and they telegraphed back to every
station and ahead. too, but they couldn't hear
anything of the missing trunk. The wires all
over Florida were hummng about the trunk
and | kept storming all the time. There wasn't
% cents in our whole company. but threatened
to spend 81 900 suing the railroad for my loss
of property, o. W. Bromwell, the superintend-
ent, was mighty clever about it. He gave me a
pass over the road and S. to pay my expenses.
and went back to all the stations looking for
the trunk. l came back. and we all put up at
the best hotel at the railroads expenses We
stad at the hotel for three weeks while the
railroad people we're looking for that trunk
and we got so lazy and fat that we couldn't
have walked to the next town if our lives de-
pended upon it,
"One day 1 was sitting in the superintendent
office complaining about the loss of the trunk
when he turned to me and said: Charley Fox
your fire king, has gone to New York. He
turned states evidence this morning and told
me all about smashing his box. and I've given
hun a pass to the north in return OF course
said that Charley lying, but the superin-
tendent would not swallow my story. Then |
asked him for a pass for myself to New York,
and he was so overcome with my nerve thar he
gave me one to Charleston, $. c., and he COM
plimented me on the way | had boarded my
Company for three weeks at the railroads ex-
peuse. / went to Charleston, joined a travelling
medicine company there and worked my way
with them to this city. That is the last expert
ence ever had as manager"