The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-09-18
LIMIT OF THE CIRCUS.


Frank J. wilstach in the Baltimore Her
 aid.
 At last there is hope for the squint and the cross-eyed-the American circus has reached its limit of bgness! This will be surprising news to those who have im- agined that we were finally to have as many circus rings as there are hairs on R horse. and that the scintilating, be- spangled and splendiferour parade, with It's knights and ladies, dens of wild anil mals. grand allegorical chariots, and the joyful caliopes, would ultimately, by the mere process of multiplication, stretch put into an indefinable and incomprehen- sible distance.
 But this is not distractng declaration thet we are not to have in the future, as in the lovely and entrancing past, the dear old bewildering three-rings. the scstatic elevated stages, and the mind-en- thralling and soul-enrapturing hippo 1rome. Without all of these spheres of action bouncingly busy at the same time, life would not be worth living and exist ence would cease to be a joy. Indeed, the circus is as lnestimably valuable as the  soothing comfort left us on this calarni- tous globe. Our eyes have somehow be- come accustomed to the bewildering ar ray of things ping round and round ike the late Van Amberg's elephant, and we have come to consider the Big show with its mu1tifarious appurtenances as one of the chief delights of life's feast
 But what may we expect in the future.
 t- xt,.rr nr1A NITlII be a stunning augmentation of petrifying novelties, rather than a senselessly swell Ing increase of mere bulging and dis tracting bulk. In short, not bigger, but a better circus is what may be ex- pected in the future
 It has been by steady process of evo- lution that the circus has reached It's present state of multitudlnosity Thirty years ago the circus travelled by wagon form town to town, and there was not much of it. Having outgrown this metn- cd of transportation it one day took ts the railroad, or in circus parlance, to the irons" and with a whoop in came the three rings and the elevated stage. So rapidly did the great railroad aggre- gations'' grow that the dear old wagon show with its 100-foot round top, It's single elephant and a few cages of more or less wild animals, was soon forgotten. From turnpike to rail brought incom- prehensible changes. But again the steel rail. as with magic wand, which meta morphosed the tiny wagon show into an amusement leviathan, has again changed the destiny of the circus. In short, 1t has been found that the modern circus, with its ninety or more care of enc kind or another, is the limit of the average rail- roads capacity in the way of sidetracks where a show can unload It's freight of wonders.
 If a circus manager should start out In the spring with more than this number of cars, requiring about 600O feet, over a solid mile of sidetrackage he would sud denly discover that he must clog the main line or fail to unload and do business As the railroad will not give over It's reg ular everyday occupation of running trains from town to town. just as If no tented aggregation existed, you can read- fly see that there Is limit to the amount of paraphernalia 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 Forepaugh- Sells Brothers circus, and James A. Bailey, owner of the Barnum and Bailey circus, were the first to discover that the modern tented show had at last reached the limit of largeness. Early this season, when the Forepaugh-Sells Brothers cir GUS was brought together, Sells found that 1t would require, owing to the addition of new features, over ninety cars to trans- port it over the country. Last seasons 8 equipment had been augmented by several new cages for fourteen polar bears, a string of shining gold dens for a new inn portation of animals, dozen new and heavy baggage wagons to carry the Jump the Gap" Loop the Loop," and the apparatus used by several new for eign acts. These additions to the circus required nine cars, along with a new private car for managerial use, and two additional sleepers for the new foreign performers. Then Mir. Sells found that he had added about 300 feet to his railroad equipment. So when the railroas people came to figure 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 accommodated 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 equip ment, will be the constant search for new and the elimination of old thrllers. This new condition 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 curiosties and other incom- prehensibie s -ations.
 But there point that has not yet been dete' iaed 't will admitted tAat nine e rs hold vast arr