Evening star., 1900-09-25
DRIVING CIRCUS TENT PINS.
nemarkabie Team Work by a Gang Of
Men With Sledge Hammers.

i A-su SAnSOS FINS.
Remarkable Team Work by a Ganw NJ
Men With Sledge Hammers
| From the New York Sun.
| Not all of the interesting sights of a cir.
| Gus are included In those seen at the pub.
lie performances, by any means" said an
| old circus goer. Il never myself saw any,
thing more interesting about a circus than
| the unloading of a big three-ring show from
| the cars 1t 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 cam
vas was held up. That was certainly some-
| thing astonishing to I'd seen some
| pretty work by drillers, three or four men
| with sledge hammers standing around q
drill held by another man, and striking
upon that, one after another with an abso-
| iutely uniform and unbroken succession Of
| bloWs; but 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 a man who walked around
with steel tape, indicating the spots
Where the pins were 10 go. Wherever he
stopped or made mark man with him
stuck into the ground big steel skewer
with a colored rag tied through a ring in
| the top. When the wagons with the poles
| ana 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 length by an inch and q
halr TO two inches in diameter, with fer
| rule around the top to prevent its splitting
| or fraying under the hammer blows, and
| shod with 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 rope coming down to ii from
the edge of the great canvas roof and they
must hold ii securely, and TO do that they
m Gf h.41 1rit n
each one of them was sunk until only about
six inches of 1t remained above the ground.
formidable a task it might have seemed
to be to put these pins down, they were
sunk to their heads with the greatest ap-
parent 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.
They 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 a ten-pound sledse.
Picking up that next stake from where it
lay on the ground the boss would stand 1t
on end, with its point where 1t belonged as
indicated by the skewer with the bright
rag in the top. While he doing this
the rest of the gang would be closing up
In ring around him and the stake and sCrt
of settling into place in a perfect forma-
ton.
When the boss had got the stake up
ended, in a vertical position and with the
point where it belonged he would hit il
one whack on the head with his sledge,
driving 1t in far enough SO that ii would
stand steady by itself, though that would
leave 1t still standing about as tall as an
ordinary man. The other eight or nine
men had by this time got settled into a
true ring around the stake, and in the next
instant after the hammer of the boss drop
ped off 1t, the hammer of the first man to
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
IS the boss stepped back.
LAS the sledge Of this first striker drop
ped from the head of the stake the sledge
of the next man to him descended upon 1t,
and SO they went, round the circle, the
hammers coming down one after another
just rapidly and closely together as
they could come without interfering. The
sounds that the hammer strokes made
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 succession OF
strokes into the roll itself. Or you might
say that for rapidity the hammer strokes
were like the sounds of the buckets of
steamboats, paddle wheel striking the
water except that there was no slowing
or quckening as there is in paddle-wheel
strokes. The strokes of the hammers Were
absolutely truly spaced; while the only
of the stake when struck. which varied a
little in pitch, its infection rising the
stake went down.
1.-The strokes swept round till 1t came the
boss turn; he had long since settled into his
place in the now perfect ring, and when his
turn came his sledge descended In true sue
cession with the rest; and, sweeping on be-
you'd, the strokes went round again Look
ing at the men now they seemed like some
strange machine with ten arms radiating
from the center. and operated from there
rNla
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 ap-
peared, moving out from the now irregular
bunch of men to the next stake, where pre-
cisely 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 1 should say there might have
been from sixty to eighty of those great
tent pins, set about ten feet apart and
forming in outline a great oblong and they
drove them all in less than an hour.
How do they get the pins up again?
With very simple contraption that works
like stump puller. 1t has pair of wheels
a foot or foot and a half high, with an
axle between, to which is attached a handle
that in a horizontal position, is like a
tongue. Attached to a projection back of
the axle is loop of chain. The handle,
or tongue, is turned straight up in the air
and that loop of chain Is dropped over the
head of the pin. 1t is loose enough to go
over the pin easily, but Ii will bind on the
pin when a strain is applied on one side of
the loop only, as is done when the tongue
is pulled down to horizontal position. serv-
ing thus as a lever. The tongue tipped up
straight again, the chain loop drops down
on the stake to where 1t will get new hold.
and the operation Is repeated until the stake
has been pulled up pulled up far enough
so that 1t can be pulled the rest of the way
by hand. Then the pin puller Is trundled
to the next pin"
Fashions Fads I'm Furs.
1t is predicted that the commingling OF