The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1900-12-07
DRIVING TENT PINS.
ONE OF THE INTERESTING SIGHTS
OUTSIDE THE CIRCUS.

An Old Show Frequenter Describes
the Remarkable Team Work by a
Gang of Hen WELDING Sledge Ham
ners That He Witnessed.
"Not all of the interesting sights of a
circus are included in those seen at the
public performances by any MEANS" said
an old circus goer. 81 never myself saw
anything more interesting about a circus
than the unloading of a big three ring
lhow from the ears it travelled in when
ON the road and the moving of this outfit
out to the show grounds and the pitching
OF the tents and so on. And not the
least interesting thing to look at in all
this was the driving Of the big tent pins
by which the great canvas was held up.
That was certainly something astonish-
ing to see. I'd seen some pretty work by
drillers-three or four men with sledge
hammers standing around a drill held by
another man and striking upon that one
after another with an absolutely uniform
and unbroken succession of blows-but l
never saw any hammer work that began
to equal this of the circus men driving
tent pins.
THE tent plan had first been laid out
on the ground by q man who walked
around with a steel tape, indicating the
spots where the pins were to go. Wher-
ever he stopped or made a mark man
with him stuck into the ground big
steel sSewer with colored rag tied
through ring in the top. When the
Fagons with the poles and pins came
Along, pins were dropped out around on
the ground, one handy to each of these
MARKERS.
The pins were each about six feet In
.ength by an inch and half to two inch
es in diameter, with ferrule around the
top to prevent its splitting or fraying I'M
der the hammer blow, and shod with a
steel point to preserve that end and make
it easier to drive the pin into the ground.
These giant tent pins were to hold each
q rope coming down to it from the edge
of the great canvas roof, and they must
hold it securely, and to do that they must
be driven deep. As matter of fact each
one Of them was sunk until only about
six inches Of it remained above the
ground. Formidable a task as it might
have seemed to be to put those pins down,
they were sunk to their heads with the
greatest apparent ease in considerably
less than a minute apiece by gang Of
men numbering eight or ten and working
all together, who moved steadily along
from pin to pin until the work was done.
"I'hey were stalwart men, every one,
and superlative experts at pin driving.
One pin driven, the boss of the gang
would move out toward the next, the rest
of the men sauntering along with him
and after him, each man carrying ten
pound sledge. Picking up that next stake
from where it lay on the ground, the
boss would stand it on end, with its point
where it belonged as indicated by the
skewer with the bright rag in the top.
While he was doing this the rest OF the
gang would be closing up in ring around
him and the stake and sort of settling in
to place in perfect formation.
sWhen the boss had got the stake up
ended, in a vertical position and with the
point where it belonged, he would hit 1t
one whack on the head with his sledge,
driving it in far enough so that 1t would
stand steady by itself, though that would
leave it still standing about as tall as an
ordinary man. The other eight or nine
men had by this time got settled into
true ring around the stake. and In the
next instant after the hammer of the boss
dropped off it, the hammer Of the first
man 10 his left came down upon it. This
mans sledge had been going up and over
and down through the air to fall upon the
stake as the boss stepped back.
"As the sledge OF this first striker drop
ped from the head of the stake the sledge
of the next man to him descended upon
it, and so they went, round the circle, the
hammers coming down one after another
just as rapidly and as closely together as
they could come without interfering. The
IL. +bpf 4hn har ~ stpOlypc D10nQ
the stake were not like the beating of a
roll on drum exactly, but they were
something like the drummer's beating of
dad-dy-mam-my, if that conveys any idea
TO you, just before he merges, with
still quicker movement, that quick sue
cession of strokes into the roll itself. Or
you might say that for rapidity the ham,
mer strokes were like the sounds of the
buckets of Il steamboats, paddle wheel
striking the water except that there was
no slowing or quickening as there is in
paddle wheel strokes The strokes Of the
hammers were absolutely truly spaced,
while the only variation in sound heard
here was in that of the stake when
struck. which varied a little in pitch, its
infection rising as the stake went down.
THE strokes swept round till it came
the boss turn. He had long since settled
into his place in the now perfect ring,
and when his turn came his sledge de-
seconded in true succession with the rest,
and, sweeping on beyond, the strokes
went round again. Looking at the men
now they seemed like some strange ma
chine with ten arms radiating from the
center and operated from there by some
body playing on a keyboard and touching
the keys as rapidly as he could in regular
succession. Twice this wave Of strokes
swept round, and the stake was driven
home. Then once more the boss appear
ed, moving out from the now irregular
bunch of men to the next stake, where
precisely the same thing was repeated.
''And that's the way they kept a-going,
right along to the finish, with machine
like regularity and precision. didn't
count them, but l should say there might
have been from co to so of those great
tent pins, set about ten feet apart and
forming in outline great oblong, and
they drove them all in less than an hour.
How do they get the pins up again?
With a very simple contEaption that
works like stump puller."-New York
Sun.