Omaha daily bee., 1908-10-04
FESTIVAL BREAKS RECORDS
Crowds Largest and Handled with
Best Results This Year.
NOT ONE STREET CAR ACCIDENT
One Million Persons Ride on Troll
ley and None Get Hurt-PO-
lice Do Faithful Work
ALSO.

In many ways the Ak-sar-Ben festival Of
1908 was the most successful and remark
able Of all these autumnal festivities.
Chief of Police Donahuc says the crowds
were the largest and best behaved.
Assistant General Manager Leussler of
the street railway company says his lines
carried 100000 persons and sustained not
ar accident to a single passenger.
Colonel George Hall, the veteran conces-
slonaire on Kings Highway, pronounced
the entire festival the best OF the kind I'M
dertaken in the United States.
The hotels, with greater facilities than
ever, did the largest business in their his
tories.
Tho Ak-Sar-Ben crowds this year were
the largest the city ever had" said Chief
of Police Donahue, "for Ak-Sar-Ben or
the Transmississippi, not even excepting
Mckinley day at the latter in 1898. In ad-
dition to the carnival visitors Omaha en-
tertained the League of American Munich
palities and the crowds that came to hear
Judge Taft speak"
street Cars Great Record.
Chief Donahue and others consider It
remarkable indeed that the street railway
company could have carried 1000, 600 per-
sons, thousands of them unaccustomed to
riding on street cars, without a single ac-
cident. This matter is one Of general COM
ment.
But the police department is coming in
for much praise for its work. Most cities
under such circumstances employ outside
detectives. Chief Donahue and his regular
force OF, 100 men looked after the enormous
task and did so with signal success.
THE people Of Omaha should be proud
NJ fhafH Fall faetdr-aI - cofd CoIopai IIa1
owner OF the Country Circus on the Kings
Highway. II have been in the show bust
ness all my life. and ] have TO say the
efforts of the Board of Governors in bring
ing in outsiders to the city surpasses any
thing I have aver come across. If a show
man cannot get the money on the Kings
Highway it Is his own fault"
Colonel Hall was In Omaha with a circus
before there was a railroad west of Des
Moines. He has been travelling all over the
country ever since and says his only re-
greet Is that he has not been to the Ak-Sar-
Ben before and says that IL the Board of
Governors wants him another year he will
be on hand with an entirely new outfit.
Colonel Hall has a large number Of cages
Of wild animals and at present has a big
act showing in Berlin, Germany, the home
OF the famous Hagenback.
Jack VIII Be Here Again.
Coming from Coney Island, where he
played many weeks at Dreamland, C. f.
Hafley C"California Frank") said after
completing the week in Omaha with his
wild west attractions:
I'VE are 30 much pleased with the patron
age which our show has been given in
Omaha that we are going to return next
year, and II it is possible give our patrons
twice as much for their money, though
our show now is just as 1t was presented
at Coney Island.
Take the week or ten days of Ak-Sar-
Ben In Omaha and every day has averaged
along with the number who attended at
Coney Island and the week in Omaha has
been much better than the average week
in Dreamland.
The Ak-Sar-Ben certainly brings the
crowds to the city and the crowds spend
their money to be entertained. Then we
enjoy an Omaha audience-hospitable, as
they all are in the west, and not frosty.
People out here appreciate our western
acts even more than in New York city,
where We are showing them something
that not one in a hundred has ever seen
and what only one in ten thousand has
seen on the western plains"