The Savannah morning news., 1900-08-19
TOLD by TIE OLD CIRCUS MAN.
The Giants Fancy for Cunning and
How II Was Turned 10 Account.

How IL Was Turned TO Account.
From the New York Sun.
The greatest of all giants" said The
old circus man, did dearly love TO go
cunning; and the old man INDUCED him
in this sport whenever he could. He lid
this partly to please the giant, and partly
for the sake of the advertising we used
20 get out of It, When he was making
| decker, in advance, for the grounds
where we were ging to show, or paying
the first selectman of the town for the
license. he would just casually ask IL there
Vas any good cunning around there, and
when they told him there was squirrel
,r quail or whatever 1t might be. the old
man would say that the biggest man IN
The show was very fond of shooting. and
he would like it IT, when the show came
along, somebody there in the town would
go out with him for an hour or two,
or course they'd say they'd have some
body do that, and they would have: ana
when this man waiting at some agreed
upon point, TO take our man out, saw the
giant coming with his gun. he never fail
ed TO be very much surprised commu-
II have never yet told you how tall the
great giant was. What's the use; you
wouldn't believe it If did, and so there's
no use OF my telling how big his gun
was In feet and inches, but in a general
way / might say that II was a double
barre1ed shotgun with barrels about as
big around and about as long as telegraph
poles, with stock and everything else in
proportion. Well, now, you know when
the great giant turned up with that sort
OF gun on his shoulder, followed by a
wagon loaded with they didn't know what.
though maybe they might have guessed,
the whole town would begin to gather.
and from that minute there'd be a great
crowd following all the time to see the
giant shoot. And he wasn't the worst
shot that ever came down the pike, eth
er.
"Of course, the gun the townsman was
carrying only made the giants gun look all
the bigger, and, Of course, the townsman
didn't do any shooting himself. When he
saw the giant and his gun he simply did
what every one else did-he watched the
big man shoot. He and the great crowd
following would climb and scramble the
best way they could over stone walls and
fences that the giant would sfep over
without scarcely lifting his feet more
than he ordinarily would in walking, and
when the giant got a sight at anything
he would raise his gun and fire and, my
goodness! it sounded like d cannon or like
a blast.
There is where the old man used 90
work in little more OF the advertising
OF course. the giant could have carried
his own ammunition and loaded his own
gun as well as anybody could, and that's
what he would have preferred TO do but
IL cost about $l.S0 for every shot he fired.
You see, II took about q pound and a
half of powder for a charge for each bar
rel and about three pints Of shot. and the
old man was bound to get this back and
something out of 1t besides II he could,
and that's why we used to have that
wagon to carry the ammunition. and we
not only carried the ammunition so, but
we carried couple OF men along to load
tine giants gun.
"If the giant was in field, for instance,
and there we're trees near him, we'd get
him 10 stand the gun up against a tree
Then one Of those two men would climb
the tree to the level OF the muzzle OF the
gun. with the charge of powder; she WAS
muzzle- loader. you understand they
didn't have breech-loaders in those days
so much. And while he was doing this the
other loader would be climbing higher I'm
the tree and he would receive and steady
the upper end of the ramrod as II was
passed up TO him by the man at the muz-
gle. and help to ram the load down
III the giant was near some fence or
stone wall by the road when he fred.
they'd get him to lay the gun down with
the butt on the ground and the barrels
resting on the top of the fence with the
muzzle up IN the air. out over the road.
Then they'd drive the ammunition wagon
under that and load right from the wag-
on. They had IN the wagon at the for
ward end a skeleton tower. something like
the tall framework they have on the was-
ons used nowadays by linemen repairing
overhead trolleys. and the man used 20
simply climb up on that 20 reach the mnz-
zie 81 the gun. Then, when you came to
rsmmlng In the wad. there was a tele-
scope section TO the skeleton tower and
We Just had 10 raise that and move the
wagon on little and the man that
rsnmed IN the wad stood on that with the
outer ond OF the rsmrod. Thon as he
remmed the wed home we'd drive tho