The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-09-02
BUSINESS SIDE
 0F THE CIRCUS Changed Conditions Under the
 Big Tents SOME OLD TIME SHOWS Interesting Story of the Rise of the Ringiings--Three Million Dollars for a Big Circus-Cost of
 the Equipment
SOME OLD TIME SHOWS
From Everybody's Magazine.

From Everybodys Magazine.
 The circus has become a highly organ ized business machine that sells amuse- ment and instruction upon a big scale. Formerly 1t was speculative enterprise, and rather more uncertain than most
 gambles. In the old days, the owner was primarily a snowman. He eliminated the
 business idea as much as possible, hiring
 men to do this end of the work for him. Nowadays the business idea dominates the circus, and the snowman is subor-
 dinate to the financier.
 Probably the greatest snowman that
 ever lived was P. T. Barnum, and he
 was fairly good business man-for a
 snowman. But when he tried to fight the
 business idea introduced into the circus
 world by James Anthony Bailey, he
 found it more powerful than the show idea. Whereupon, Barnum proved his wis dom by joining forces with Bailey; and the two, forming a combination that
 made the perfect circus machine, became supreme in their world.
 Now, 1t is a mooted point whether Bar mum or Lincoln made the epigram about fooling all of the people part of the time, and part of the people all of the time; at any rate, Barnum lived up to it. There was much more morality in the adver-
 
 the show itself Baileys idea, on the other hand, was not to fool the people at all, but to make the circus clean, hon. est, above reproach inside and out. Any thing that wasn't straight was abhorrent to him personally. and, furthermore he
 believed straightness would pay better in the long run
 Until Bailey became a power in the circus, graft was one of it's chief sources of income, although 1t was never men toned under that name. It was called privileges" In the old days the circus
 sold the gambling privilege, as it did the candy privilege, the concert privilege,
 the side-show privilege, and ever so many others. The late Adam Forepaugh was very ingenious in evolving graft games | Once upon a time some of his subordi- mates protested against a blind woman who was begging regularly at the main | entrance Forepaugh said he hadn't the | heart to drive away the poor afflicted
 creature. It transpired that she paid him
 $20 a week for the privilege of begging | As a rule, too, all of the "privileges'
 were run dishonestly. Bailey. however, | had secured his first real start as an | owner of legitimate privileges, and he found he could run them honestly and make money. When he rose to owner ship, he abolished the rental or sale of privileges, concentrating everything un-
 der his own control. He made the circus
 conform to recognized business laws; he standardized and systematized 1t.
 | The function of Business Is to give | security, to insure, in so far as Is possi-
 ble, certain profits. To accomplish this
 business attempts to eliminate, to the
 greatest extent practicable. the element | of risk, which may mean huge losses
 or enormous profits Under the old l regime a circus run by a snowman often made huge profits one season, only tc | collapse in the next. The snowman, al
 ways an outrageous optimist. forever trusted to chance. He never could es-
 innate what might happen. But Bailey Nalways knew how much he could lose
 and how much he could make. He was
 always prepared for any emergency thai confronted him.
 | Rise of Ringling Brothers
 While Bailey was revolutionizing the