The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-12-29

fcient as brass instrumentalists at an early age, and they were still in their teens when they organized a concert company, which in a short time became minstrel company, and they began to tour the small towns of their native state.
 From the minstrels to the circus was an easy transition. Augustus was tn sV master of a trade-two trades, in fact and was equally successful carriage painter or a harness maker. At first he declined to risk the certainty of his wages at his trades for the uncertainty of the show business. The youngest brother, Henry, was still too young to have a voice in the matter.
 When the circus company was organ ized five of the brothers made up the firm that still exists unchanged. When they organized they apportioned the work that each has followed ever since It Is due, perhaps, to this organization, more than anything else, that their busi- ness has been so successful, each of the brothers becoming a specialist in his own department, and accorded by the other four absolute control of 1t. Inciden-
 tally. it may be said that 1t Is the five departments of the show business that they handled themselves that command the highest salaries when they are han dled by employees, as Is usually the case with all other shows, and the aggregate
  like the Barnum & Bailey shows amount ed to many thousands of dollars annu- ally, was saved to the Ringlings.
 How the Brothers Work.
 Albert, the eldest of the brothers was given charge of the show proper-that is, he runs the performances decides upon what they shall be, hires the performers and is the equestrian director, or what 1@a I1.5 w.I.x fS..at the stage manager It is said that in more than 20 years he has never missed a performance. and has stood at the en- trance to the dressing room and kept the performances moving with the smooth ness and speed for which they are noted.
 Otto, the third brother, has always had charge of "the front" as circus people call it; he has been at the main entrance to the show and kept his eyes upon the entrance of the public, the finances, etc. A quiet, well-set-up man. of the evenest sort of temper he has made the entrance of the Ringing Bros. show famous for the courtesy shown to their patrons.
 When it is considered that the public is usually hustled and showed about like lot of sheep or dogs at the entrance to circus, tickets and money snatched from their hands, and growls and gruffness the common salutation they receive from the circus people, polite treatment from the Ringlings was as gratefully as it was surprisingly received.
 Politeness Made a Reputation.
 Every circus man in the country will acknowledge now that it was this unfaij- ing politeness to the public that did more to make the Ringing Bros. than anything else. They might, as they did in the early part of their career, give a much inferior nerf0Tnanra5 n ui " other shows, but the grateful public would see nothing but that which was good in them. This was largely the work of Otto.
 Charles, next junior to Otto was given the very important work as general agent of the show. It is his task to see that al the preparatory work by the advance agent of all sorts is we'll done, although one department of the advance work is handled independently of him. The secur- ing of exhibition grounds. of billboards, of the provisions for the show and of all the manifold details of advertising the shows is in his capable hands.
 Alfred T. also looks after that most important part of the advance work-the publications and the press. Although he seldom does any of the work personally while the show is on tour, he exercises a close supervision over the agents em- ployed in that department. During the winter season he prepared the advertising matter for the following season, writing much of the allurng literature himself, and doing it well.
 Youngest Is a Cosmopolitan, John, the youngest member of the firm,
 Is the largest physically, and in some other respects as we'll An extraordinarily handsome man, with a great amount of personal magnetism, and until a year or tba n1y hao I, brothers,s he is distinctly the man who stands closest between the show and the public. While the other brothers are dis tinctly domestic and dislike the sight of $ large city save to do business, in, John is a familiar figure upon the highways of Chicago and New York, London, Paris and Berlin.
 John makes the front for all of us," one of the other brothers once remarked, and it was an apt description. He has a faculty for learning the country, and to him was assigned the task, reserved to themselves by all the great showmen-the routing of the show, or, in plainer par lance, the selection of the territory in which it should show.
 This entails knowledge of the indus tries of communities, the condition of crops in the surrounding country and. quite as important as anything else, d knowledge of the intentions of rival shows as 10 tnelr territory they expect to idhe their shows into.
 Circuses avoid opposition when they can; when they can't they must fight. The weak shows will avoid the strong ones; the strong ones like to catch the weaker ones in their territory, where they think they can punish them.
 This sentiment of opposition in the circus business is a singular. one that obtains in no other, and is difficult for the layman to understand It is a traditional one among circus people. and out In the country the public will array itself upon the side of the one show or the other. It is in this opposition work that the Ring lngs are always very strong
 They are hard and intelligent fighters and very heavy advertisers. Their per- sonal following, earned through their po- lite treatment of their patrons, and q custom they employed for many years of making every commercial traveller personal friend and agent by giving him a season pass to their show, was Of in calcuable aid to them in these fights. Rivals Fight Helped Them. It is said that the Ringlings were made A great show by the ill-advised character of A fight made against them by a gen. eral agent of the Barnum & Bailey show at two points, Milwaukee and Omaha. At Milwaukee the Ringlings were in their own state and not far from home. They were popular members of a great secret organization that had its state headquar- ters at Milwaukee.
 The agent of the New York show spread broadcast advertising matter referring sneeringly to the "Barraboo Brothers