Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1910-05-05
Extensive Winter Quarters.

L
estimated at $4,000, independent or
repairs and building new cars and
wagons.
While the show is wintering agents
/ are travelling over the world looking
for new acts and novelties When the
show takes to the road in the spring
the payroll shows that performers
have been engage whose salaries
range from $50 10 $500 week. just
who gets the thirty and who gets the
eight hundred is question into which
the circus mouthpieces do not like to
go to deeply for public consumption
because the performers, a singularly
well informed class, with highly de-
veloped taste for reading, are likely to
| be touched in their professional pride
and bring on disagreements that can
| do no good. But there is no hesitancy
| in pointing out that the cost of rail-
road travel varies from $500 and 81 500
| day. depending, of course, on the
length of the jump to be made and
| the section of the country the Jump is
made in. The average daily expense
attaching to the circus is from $500
to $500 cay. Glittering Broadway
productions have been made at these
figures, productions destined to endure
for weeks, or maybe months.
Tons Of Daily Provender.
The ingredients that go into this
daily expense account are SO many
that it does not require corroborative
proof of the allegation that lit costs
money to run circus" Every day
there are used seven tons of hay, two
hundred bushels of oats, one hundred
and fifty bushels of corn, six tons OF
straw for bedding, fifty bushels Of
bran, one and one-half carcesses of
beef for the lions end the tigers and
seven hundred pounds of vegetables
for those animals that like vegetables.
In the cook house there are used
daily three hundred pounds of beef,
one hundred and fifty pounds of NUT
ton, two hundred pounds of pork, five
hundred and fifty chickens eacn
Wednesday and Sunday; two hundred
dozen eggs every day, eight hundred
loaves of bread, half barrel of syrup,
ten barrels of apples, alternating with
oranges, peaches, pears and other
fruits in season. Canned goods ana
condiments the circus buys in cases
by the gross. To serve the outcome
OF these raw materials there are sixty
dining room attendants. There lis a |
high priced chef with the show and he
has eight assistants There is a.
high priced pastry cook and he has
three.
Prospe Tity Governs Routes.
10 move the big show from town to
town with such skill that at the end Of
the season there may be large profit
IS not child's play Routing a circus
differs in many ways from routing a
theatrical attraction Some people
think circus man can tell this week. |
Tor example, the name of the town
his show will be playing in on any day
In September. He can't. Circuses
depend 50 largely on the condition of
the country through which they play
that they are routed only six weeks |
In advance and often only four weeks. |
The question of visiting Kansas for
instance, depends upon whether the
crops viii be good in Kansas.
Ihe routing agent of the circus re-
celves all the crop reports issued by
the government and he keeps close
tab on agricultural and Industrial con-
dltlons in all sections of his tentative
route. Some of the advance agents of
the show are used as investigators of |
conditions en- route and their ranorts
are as accurate as reports can be.
states like Kansas, Iowaand Nebras.
ka, for instance, in which the prosper
1ty of the circus depends almost
entlrely on the prosperity of the
FARMER, see the circus only in good"
years. The routing agent lodges the
agricultural communities altogether
IL the crops are bad. If the crops are
big, ne can play any town with profit.
II they are only fair, he zigzags across
the State like man playing checkers
Bad Years RepeI Farmers.
If the farmers crop prospects are
good it means that he has plenty of
credit at the stores and the banks. |
consequently he is feeling good, and
when the circus comes around he takes
his wife and all the children and the
hired man. If indications are that a |
bad year is upon him one of his first
economical measures is to cut out his |
Injuries, and no matter what city folk |
may think about the farmers inability
to live whole year without seeing the
inside of a tent, it is a sad fact. sad
TO the circus man as we'll as to the |
farmer, that If he begins to save onl
iuxuries one of the first luxuries to |
be sacrificed is the circus.
Even if the crops are good the
routing agent may starve in the midst
of plenty. He may send his show into
prosperous community in harvest
time and if he does his show paws the
penalty. The farmer hates with all
his soul the circus that comes in har
vest time, because since the world |
began there has been no hired man
that has been able to resist the big
top. Too often the hired man on his
trip to town ito see the elephant"
looks not only \at the harmless ele-
plant in the menagerie, but IN the |