The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-08-11
THE mAGNEr1sM OF THE CIRCUS.

The circus is always the most interesting
local event of the year in the sense that it
is the most democratic meeting in Amer
the greatest number of people of both
sexes, all ages, ali degrees of intelligence,
of every rank. race, color and condition of
life. Political mass-meetings do not at
tract women and children and are abso-
lutely repulsive to many intelligent men.
The religious camp-meeting comes the
nearest to the circus in the size and variety
of its audience. but even that interesting
assembly does not include so large and SO
full representation of human types of all
sorts. from the supercilious Bourbon dude,
who thinks he is the top OF
good society, to the malevvlent, ig-
norant. vulgar, insolent and turbulent
boor that is the human horned pout
that swlms lazily along Its muddy bottom.
You can perhaps find larger local assem-
blies, but none of such variegated hue and
character. All classes of society go to the
circus, drawn thither by no sectarian
appeal, no call of party, no summons of
business, in discharge OF no social or COM
mercial obligations. All the men who
visit the theater go to the circus, but
there are hundreds at the circus
who would avoid the theater, either
through Puritanic prejudice or disrelish
for the finer and less grossly real
istic entertainment of the dramatic
stage. The circus has the advantage
over the theater in that it can
always pose as ''moral show" The men,
agerie is endorsed by parents, teachers and
clergymen, and with these object lessons
in natural history are associated gym
nastic exercises and athletic feats that are
fascinating to decent people of both sexes
because they are performed with artistic
skill and grace, are free from external
brutality, and therefore do not tempt
young boys to become athletes for bare
purpose, as do public exhibitions of scien-
tific pugilism.
So everybody goes to the circus, from
toddling infancy and cherubic childhood
to young manhood, stout middle years and
hale old age. People seen by their neigh
bors but seldom throughout the year, be-
cause of the lonely, isolated, hermitic lives
they lead. appear at the circus as mysteri-
ously as toads after a rain. The eremite
of the year becomes the gregarious and
hilarious hummer or the garrulous and
tricksy bacchante of the day when the
circus celebrates its annual carnival. The
rush of childhood and youth to the circus
needs no explanation, but why is 1T always
q favorite resort of all old men? The
best answer we can give is that cir
Gus day was TO nine-tenths of them
in their youth the best holiday of their
monotonous and narrow existence. There
the boy saw the most life of any day in
the year; life tainted by no sanctimonious
or conventional restraints; life that had
all the elements of roaring farce and
low comedy in it, but darkened
by no touch of real tragedy;
boisterous, turbulent, hilarious life, full of
incessant social movement and rafting
speech. An old man naturally turns With
pleasure to visit what recalls the JOYOUS
springtime of his boyhood, and he goes to
the circus in the halfhumorous, half-pen-
sive mood with which he watches his IA
yorite grandchild play.
This mood of the old man has been
felicitously interpreted by Georgia ed
itor in the following lines:
This world is all fleeing show,
And soon grim death viii jerk US;
But let's be happy as we go,
And all enjoy the circus.