The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-04-26
TOLD BY THE OLD CIRCUS MAN.
Che shrewd Observers Trick to Win
 the Favor of the Great Giant.

From the New York Sun.
 "There's more than one way to XII cat" said the old circus man.
 ''The greatest of all giants was very fond of sardines. Give him two or three loaves of dry bread. not dry to be crum- blv. but just a little dry, and plenty of sardines and you gave him lunch that suited him just a little bit better than most anything else he ever had; the only trouble about it being in the size of the sardnes
 "of course we could give him plenty of them, and commonly he would eat ten or twelve boxes; but as compared with himself, the sardines always looked ri- diculously small. That sort of disturbed him, and he always used to say that the little fishes wasn't big enough to taste.
 In winter quarters every year, after the seasons hard work on the road, the great giant used to put in about four months of solid comfort. For the first winter or two we did try showing him a little in halls in cities, but we had so much trouble finding comfortable quarters for him in the cities we visited that we gave that up. But showmen used to come to us, just the same, to try 10 get the giant; and there was so much money in him, if they could get him. that they used to try very hard
 One of the people that came to us in that way one winter was man named Jonas Philgrin, man I knew very We'll myself, who owned hall in town about forty miles from our place. Philgrih came in a number of times that winter and tried every way he knew to get the giant to put in a few days at his place, but he couldn't start him at all.
 But one day when he was there and saw the giant taking a lunch of sar- dines and saw how fo the giant was of sardines and how Ut of proportion the little minnows was to the great giant, and how this seemed to detract from the giants enjoyment in eatin' 'em, Philgrin had an idea. which he communicated later to me, and l saw no objection to it.
 About three weeks after that one day when the giant thought he'd like to have lunch of bread and sardines, we set out for him the customary quantity of bread and box of sardines that was something like the size of a soap box in it's general dimensions but 1t was a reg ular sardine box, perfectly proportioned in every way and with all the marks. It had the regularly rounded corners, and all that sort of thing, and the regulation thin brass label on the front. with 'sar- dimes dhuile on it, or whatever 1t is in n, and stamps of the Worlds Fair medals that this brand of sardines had taken ap- bearing at the ends: it was complete.
 Tt must have cost something to get 1t up I'll bet the die for that label alone cost Philgrin hundred dollars. The box had to be made of booty heavy tin on account of it's size, and we laid on the top of it, for a can opener. good stout pair of prunin shears and let the giant | I, xxIAo ,f aft1B fr1ca al
 He didn't make any great show over 1t, but you could see it ticlSled him immense ly; there was a box of sardines that he could look at without feeling foolish, and when he had opened up the box and bent the top back he was more pleased still.
 There they were, handsome sardines. handsomely packed, and they were sar- dimes suited to his size. He didn't know it. not then, anyhow, but they were fine selected Spanish mackerel that Philgrin had had carefully cooked and carefully boned and sardine-packed in oil. | ''When the giant had eaten the last sar- dine he sopped the last slice of bread in the oil and then he filled his big pipe. the one that had a larger beer keg for bowl and a short section of a pump log for a stem, and settled back in his big chair and smoked for a time with great con- tentment; and then booty soon he says to me:
 " 'Where'd you get them sardines?
 And I told him they was some that was sent to him by Joe Philgrin.
 t" 'Humph! says the giant
 And just then by the most remarkable coincidence, somebody knocked on the door and in come Jonas Philgrin himself. And Jonas had another talk with the gi- ant, and this time he got him to go up to his town and show in his hall for week.
 "I tell you, my son." the old circus man concluded, there's more than one way to kill a cat"