The age-herald., 1897-10-05
ROUTING A CIRCUS.
A Few Facts and Figures Worth Remembering
 About Big Show.

There are but five cities in the coJn- | try outside of New York that are week stands;' they are Brooklyn, Chicago, Philadelphia, Bos.on and St. Louis, and there are bu: five other oEties that are but two-day stands and they are Pitts burg Cincinnati, Washington, Balt.more and New Orleans. All the others are
 only one-d'ay towns for us,' said the gen.
 eral press agen: of the Barnum 6 Bailey Greatest Show on Earth.
 Now, how few persons there are who will comprehend the full force of this statement. When one contGders for a noment that the circus is on the road (by which :erm is meant the summer travelling season. 180 days, or there abouts, and that there are cnly alb 5ut twenty five firs,t-class cities, all told with populations excee ding 100000, 1t is then
 more readily seen why big circus like
 ours is compelled to take, ait times, what
 some people imagine to be a very small
 town for so big an amusement enter
 prise. The towns may be small, 'tis true,
 but in mos. ca ses the surrounding coun-
 try Is thickly sstJfed, and as our patron-
 age in such places is largely dependent
 upon the adjoining territory and cont.g
 uous towns, the small :owns often prove
 more profitable than otherwise, and
 sometimes fully as much so as cities of
 the first-class.
 "In a single season there are about 100
 small towns which we must make, and
 I. is on the selection of these places that
 the real success of a big circus depends. Large cities can be safely calculated
 upon, all things considered, to turn out
 about the same money re5ul year after
 year, providing the weather is favorable,
 and o.her conditions equal, but the small
 places are the uncertainty, and much
 study of maps, charts, railroad faclfies
 and crops, aye, and even the tempera-
 ment and prosp psrity of the inhabitants,
 must be considered.
 Every spring when the show takes
 the road, MT. Bailey begins planning h s
 route for the next season. This he does quietly, alone and secretly, when, after selecting the territory he. proposes 70 visJs he divides it off into weeks and into the weeks he places the towns he purposes exhibiting in. If you will mo- tice, as far as practicable, all large cl-
 ies are Monday stands; that enables him to make long runs on the railroads on Sunday to reach them, and gives him parr of the Sabbath to erect his canvsses and gee in readiness for the next day. Having gotten the Monday towns on the list, the other towns, the best re- maining in ghe coutry to be visi ed, have to be placed thereon, and when these are all properly located you then have ths
 nucleus of the route. I mention the word nucleus advisedly, for when ,.he towns
 are placed on paper they may seem all tight, but the calculations have then to
 be made, and following these may come, and often doss, a total arrangement of the enire route.
 But having gcI.ten the skale. on of the rou1e, so to speak, and all the proposed towns laid out on paper, the mileage has to be taken into accoun:-that is, ithe distances between cites has ito be r2clS- oned, and the railroad facilities for trans porta.ion. With four trains, each con- rairfng fifteen cars, and every car nearly seven.y feet long, heavily ladsn with ele- phants, horses and circus material of all
 kinds, the capacity of the locomotive on some roads, and the grades, hegfhts of bridges and tunrlefs, and even capacity of sidings on other lines, mus. be duly | considered, as well as the fact qhat but twenty miles an hour is good spesd on some roads, under the most favorable cir cumStanceS. Under these conditions from 60 to 100 miles are all that can safely be
 made in a night, if the manager would
 reach his next town on time to make his parade and do business. A larger dis tance than that would entail too much risk, and imperil che loss of one days receipts, which eat up many days prof. it's. This part having been duly cal
 culat1d, and, let us imagine, arranged
 somewhat satisfactorily, a much extend-
 ed review of the whole must be made,
 inasmuch as crop conditions are largely
 fac:or, and frequently a decided one,
 in determining a circus route.
 '"The middle of January every year
 sees the railroad contracting agent at work making his negotia tons with the various companies to transport the show over the country selected for the season, which is done im this way: There may be l five towns on the railroad which it is ihe
 purpose of the show, according to the route, to take in in the spring, and there
 may be iben more desired a month later | and still again five additional places that are to be taken in in the fall, i'm ac- cordarbee with the crop prospects and