The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-07-30
THE CIRCUS LIMIT
The Big Tented Shows Can Grow
No More.
Railroads Taxed to Handle the
Long Trains.
LOOK TO FEATURES.
Instead OF Increasing the Size
Must Improve.
Managers Afraid to Abandon the
4 TO FEATURES.
Managers Afraid to Abandon the
Costly Parades.

AT last there is hope for the squint
and the crosseyed-the American cir
Gus has reached its limit of bignessi
This will be surprising news to those
who have imagined that we were final
~ to have as many circus rings as
there are hairs on a horse. and that
the scintillating, bespangled. and
splendiferous parade, with its knights
and ladies. dens of wild animals,
grand allegoricaI chariots, and the joy
ful calliopes. would ultimately, by the
mere process of multiplication, stretch
out into an indefinable and incompre-
hensible distance.
But this is not a distracting declara-
ton that we are not to have in the
future, as in the lovely and enhancing
past. the dear old beWildering three
rings, the ecstatic elevated stages, and
the mind enthralling and soul enrap-
turing hippodrome. Our eyes have
somehow become accustomed to the
bewildering array of things going
round and round" like the late Van
Amberg's elephant. and we have come
to consider the Big Show" with its
multifarious appurtenances, as one of
the chief delights of life's feast
But what may we expect in the fu-
ture, and the prospect is an alluring
one, will be a stunning augmentation
of petrifying novelties, rather than a
senselessly swelling increase of mere
bullying and distracting bulk. In short.
not digger, out a DeIIeT CIRCUS Is
what may be expected in the future.
1t has been by a steady process of
evolution that the circus has reached
its present state of multtudinosity.
Thirty years ago the circus travelled
by WAGON from town to town, and
there was not much of it. Having
outgrown this method of transporta-
ton, ii one day took to the railroad,
or, in circus parlance, to the irons"
and with a whooD in came the three
elevated
rapidly did the great railroad aggre-
cations" grow that the dear old wagon
show, with its 100-fOot round top, its
single elephant, and few cages of
more OF less wild animals. was soon
forgotten. From turnpike to rail
brought incompreh ensible changes.
But again the steel rail, as with a
magic wand, which metamorphosed
the tiny wagon show into an amuse-
ment leviathan. has again changed the
destiny of the circus. In short. 1t has
been found that the modern circus,
with its ninety or more cars of one
kind or another. is the limit of the
average railroads capacity in the way
of sidetracks where a show can I'M
load its freight of wonders
If a circus manager should start out
in the spring with more than this
number of cars. requiring about 5000
feet over a solid mile of sidetrackage,
he would suddenly discover that he
must either clog the main line" or
the railroad will not give over its
regular everyday occupation of run
ming trains from town to town, just as
II no tented aggregation existed, you
can readily see that there is a limit
TO the amount of paraph ernalia that
the circus will be permitted to carry
The railroad will not and cannot give
way. and so the circus must do so.
Peter Sells, manager of the Fore
paugh-Sells Bros. circus and James
A Bailey, owner of the Barnum &
Bailey circus, were the first to dis
cover that the modern tented show
had at last reached the limit of large
ness Early this season, when the
Bros. circus was
brought together, Peter Sells found
that it would require, owing to the
addition of new features, over ninety
cars to transport it over the country.
Last seasons equipment had been
augmented by several new cages for
fourteen polar bears, string of shin
ing gold dens for a new importation
of animals, a dozen new and heavy
baggage wagons to carry the Jump
the Gap" Loop the LOOP" and the
apparatus used by several new for
circus required nine cars, along with
a new private car for managerial use
and two additional sleepers for the
new foreign performers Then Mr..
Sells found that he had added about
500 feet to his railroad equipment. So
when the railroad people came to fig
ure on the length of their sidetrackage
they discovered that the four trains
of some twenty cars each used by this
circus this season could be accommo-
dated at but few points. The circus
at last had reached its supreme limit
of bulk.
What will now be the aim of the
circus manager, not being able to
make further additions to his already
enormous equipment, will be the con-
slant search for new and the elimi-
nation of old thrillers. This new con-
dition will be a blessing, both to the
managerial purse and the optic nerves
and the esthetic tastes of the public. !
Competition in the circus business
must now run riot in the direction of
securing eye-opening curiosities and
other incomprehensible sensations.
But there is one point that has not |
yet been determined 1t will be ad-
mftted that ninety or more cars hold
a vast AIRY of circus paraphernalia |
to be loaded and unloaded each day.
When you come to think of it, this
daily packing and unpacking of the
circus is one of the great transporta-
ton achievements or mocern times
So 1t is now impossible to increase
the number of features of the Joyous
and glinting parade, or even those
of the performance irselr without en-
croachtng one upon the other. The
colossal free spectacle" amazing as a
freak of nature, glittering as the Med
aterranean literal, and Respondent as