The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-10-09
BECK-WALLACE CLOWN TELLS HIS EXPERIENCES

The work of the clowns in the Carl better and funnier this year than it has ever been before. No price is too high flor a good hearty laugh, and at the cir GUS this year one gets a succession of i them for very small fraction of the sprice of one. These clowns are genuinely funny and the man who sees them does hot go away muttering about the good old days of Dan Rice or some other celebrity of his boyhood. He just takes the laughs away with him and has them over again after he gets home.
 The creator of all the business at the circus this year is young man named |5ames Rutherford. Rutherford is with put doubt the most finished clown seen Iin many years. He is funny from the minute he appears until he goes out for breathing spell, and the business which he has devised and which he and the other clowns carry out is excruciat- Hngly funny. He is everything that a clown should be and good many things that other clowns are not. He Is a trained acrobat. and so his horseplay Pnmes In with any act. and is always Effective. He is ready and willing to go Through any antic that will amuse, no matter how violent it is, and he works almost unceasingly during the perform hnce. Rutherford tried to tell reporter bomething about the life of a clown dur Ing the performance one afternoon re- tently. He told an interesting story, but he had to tell it in three, five and ten minute sections, for he has very little leisure during performance, and much bf that time he spends trying to get back the breath that has been knocked but of him by his comrades in the ring, For the life of clown is violent one. He must punch and be punched, he must kick and be kicked, he must fall hard hnd often, or else he won't be the kind bf funny person that folks expect and want
 ''If folks would only laugh at something nice and gentle" said Rutherford, 'it wouidn't be so bad for a clown. But they xon't. No. they want a fellow to do everything but break his neck, and if he would do that, too, they'd be even more obliged I suppose it's our own fault. We've educated the people up to where yiolent monkey shines, and hang it, we have to give that sort of thing to them.
 ''If one of the tumblers make a miscal- tulation and lands on the end of his pine instead of his feet, there Is a cry
  bne looks anxious to see If the man is hurt But if clown does a double ummersault, lands on the bare ground bn the small of his back, everybody rsaghs. And they expect the next clown do this or something even funnier SWhen he doesn't they seem surprised Ind say: Say, the first fellow was the funniest of the lot, wasn't he?'
 'Why, in the grand entry the other lay one of the heaviest of the show wagons ran over the foot of one of the downs and mashed several of his toes very badly. He let out howl of genuine pain and went hopping across the lot on bis good foot, the injured one tightly elasped in his hand. We'll you never beard anything like the shriek of laugh Fer which greeted the accident, and ii kept up as long as four of the ring bands who carried the man out, were in fight. I wonder how many of those whc Witnessed that affair and laughed at il knew afterward that that man was taken O the hospital and has been there ever bince.
 "There's one thing more than any other though, when I am sorry that I am a