The Savannah morning news., 1904-07-10
A Is 20
v outlandish places.

These people do not agree to juggle,
dance and reveal the customs of their
lands to wondering Americans for a
song. Even donkey boy from the
banks of the Nile demands ten dollars
a week as wages. and gets it. dane
ing girl from Poland or Egypt or a
SingaleSe stick dancer can not be Sc
cured for less than half again as much:
so the attraction that numbers it's for
eign performers by the hundred has
weekly payroll mounting up into the
thousands. The American Indian sells
his services more cheaply than the
Asian or Egyptian, but notwithstand-
ing this fact the man who manages
troupe of six hundred redskins has
to pay his war-whooping performers a
weekly stipend of some thirty-ve hun
dred dollars. This is exclusive of their
keep. AS the Indians are hired to APP
pear during the twenty weeks of
warm weather the total investment in
wages alone aggregates seventy thou
sand dollars.
The Domestic Animals.
Moreover, every show numbers
among its drawing cards the domestic
animals that are associated with it's
particular type of strange peoples
camels, Eskimo dogs, Egyptian don
keys, llamas and so on. Everything
considered, S475.000 was spent on a
show of this kind at Coney Island.
and like sum on one at the st. Louis
Fair, which consists of buildings COW
ering four acres. 730 people, camels
in sufficient numbers to make "a good
sized caravan and several hundred
animals of minor size and commercial
Importance.
Many of the donkey boys, the dane
ers, the jugglers and the swordsmen
who do their turns in the various
streets" have been making their liv
ing in this fashion since the days of
the Chicago Fair. When the season
closes in America they return to their
respective lands. and until a promoter
comes after them again, live in opu-
lence off the money made when they
were on exhibit. Once they get the
show fver they are good for nothing
else. and their little farms along the
banks of the Nile, or their reindeer
in Lapland may go hang for all they
care. For If they were to labor a life
time in the ways of their fathers they
could not make so much money by
half as they can get together in one
good season in this country
Large as are these figures they sink
into insignificance beside those which
represent the expenditure on what may
be called the "three-ringed" attrac-
tions for want of a better term.
Such an amusement has as many, if
not more, offerings to divide the pleas
ure seekers attention as "a big circus,
with its rings and trapezes and plat
forms full at once and the same time.
Within its circumference are twenty
or thirty separate shows, each taking
thousands of dollars to get in opera
ton and employing all the way from
score to three or four hundred per-
sons.
This One Cost S3,5cO. 600.
One of these colossal amusement
places at Coney Island was built at a
cost of 1880, 900. This sum is inclusive
of the price of the ground, and exclu-
sive of the money necessary to estab-
lish a line of three steamers running
between New York and the island. A
sturdy rival has capital Of 81 900, 900
for running expenses, and one Of its
leading spectacles is so mammoth that
slxty-seven elephants take part in it.
None of the far-famed circuses carry
such a large troupe of pachyderms and
the number of people who find employ
ment somewhere about the ten acres
of buildings and grounds, dominated
by a tower glowing at night with TO-
900 electric lights, would make a town
of 5000 population.
The Chicago Midway was hailed as
a record breaker i'm the amusement
line, yet all the shows along its seduc-
tive length did not represent COM
bined investment of much more than
S2. 900 900. That was ten years ago. To-
day we have conservative capitalists
pouring their money by the millions in
TO a single enterprise and, what rs
more to the point with them, getting 1t
all back, with goodly interest to boot,
the first season. This is little circum-
stance which causes them ruthlessly to
tear down what was good last year and
replace It with something the amuse-
ment promoters in partnership with
them declare will surely astonish puz-
zle.s captivate, brighten and thrill the
public more thoroughly than anything
ever before attempted.
Copyright, 1904. by T. G. McClure)