The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-10-19
CROWDS WEREGREAT
 AT BARNUM- -BAILEY'S
THOUSANDS TURNED AWAY AT MEMPHIS WHEN THE GREAT AGGREGATION SHOWED THERE ON SATURDAY..

There is nothing, perhaps that arouses so much general interest among all class es of persons, old and young as the cir GUS. By common consent the Barnum and Bailey Greatest Show on Earth has for many years been placed at the top of the list of circuses. Six years ago 1t went to Europe and remained there for five years. At frequent intervals the press of the country had it's attention attract ed to it's remarkable career abroad and the government itself received many re- ports from United States consulates re- porting the enormous business being done by the American show and the glory it was refleeting upon the country not only because of it's immense size and infinite superiority over anything ever seen In Europe, but also because of it's prompt business methods and the same honesty that has always characterized 1t at home. It returned to America last winter and after a long season at Madison Square Garden, New York city, 1t began It's tour of the country. Last week it completed it's first week in the south and to state that It is creating a furore would be to put 1t but mildly. It spent two days at Nashville and the Nashville. press stated
 
 than was drawn by the Tennessee cen tennial. The second day 1t attracted over thirty thousand persons by actual count. It did the same thing at Memphis on Saturday, The usually staid and con- servative Memphis Commereial-Appeal of yesterday, which reached this city last evening grew enthusiastic over the great show to the extent of more than column of which the following is quoted, under the head lines: People were turned away" record of local circus attendance was broken;" thirty thousand people saw the performances;' "The Barnum and Bailey makes good it's claim of the Greatest on Earth;' |" "a splendid spec tacular street pageant"
 Every year brings it's circus season and the usual shows.
 Yesterday something greater and better and more splendid was offered. Barnum & Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth, newly arrived from five years of trium- phant wandering through Europe, ap- peared again in a blaze of circus glory. It's return to this country is a vindica- tion of Americas supremacy in the show business. It not only survived under for eign skies but it grew and fattened and flourished and now returns as an existing paradox that the impossible is made possi-
 
 mind could for a minute conceive how so much is condensed in this organization it would be capable of solving perpetual motion and other unheard of things. The very spectacle is so stupendous that those who expected a great deal were com pelled to pause, to hold their breath and excaim This Is wonderful
 The glory of the circus of the past is lost in the glory of the Barnum & Bailey enterprise. The circus of yesterday was merely a debutante in the amusement world, and Barnum & Bailey offer the full fedged magnificent possibility of to- day. Nothing like it has ever been seen before and nothing more extensive is ever likely to be seen in this world or any other The perfection of the showman's art has been reached, the epitome of all that is possible in the grouping of splen- did effects of the ring programme is found here. Barnum & Bailey's is literally and truthfully the greatest of all shows on earth, and while others satisfy, this one bewilders, because 1t cannot be conceived and cannot be overpraised. wonderful brain must have fathered the enterprise.