Arizona republican., 1910-09-22
HOW THE C|RCUsES
 CHOOSE THEIR ROUTES
Financial Experts and Weather and
 Crop Foreeasters.
(Glenmore Dayis.)

When you see a flaming billboard, or flamboyant newspaper advertise ment, or a Dickenesque press notice announcing the approach of a travel ing tent show, has it ever occurred to you to wonder what had been the procedure by which the management had decided to come to your town? Possibly you have thought that cir cuses travel about the country in a hit-or- miss fashion, following the line of least resistance and simply making use of the railway for short jumps between neighboring towns. If so, you are wrong. It is not done that way.
 The Barnum & Bailey circus, which comes to Phoenix Monday. Sept. 26, is equipped with corps of financial experts, weather and crop forecasters and travelling agents so intricate and so complete that they can properly be described as the most efficient band of men and the most perfectly informed group of amusement pur- veyors extant. It is their business to know in advance the exact condition of every part of the country through which the circus expects to play, and they must also be able to read the future with something approaching precision. Of course they would not be able to succeed in this work were it not for years of experience and great masses of accumulated data. The booking department of Barnum x Bailey's circus is a wonderful place. It works the year round, and its la bors never cease.
 You can depend upon it that the circus is coming to this city, because after a cereful and searching study the proprietors find the conditions here full of promise of a successful engagement. With the material at their disposal, they believe that noth- ing can prevent the circus local sue cess. excepting weather or some other untoward cause oyer which human beings have no control. They have decided to play here at this particular time for reasons.
 As soon as the circus season closes in the late autumn the business of booking the route for the next year begins. A careful record is kept of the rainfall and the crop reports of every populated part of the country for thirty years back If the promise of full crops is good and the weather the past few weeks healthy, if the financial equilibrium of the neighbOr- hood is undisturbed by bank failures or strikes, if the general health of the community makes it safe to in- troduce a big circus family of 1,2S0 people and the thousands of tame and wild animals. the show is booked re- gardless of the length of the railway trip or the difficulty in overcoming the local troubles in hauling the heavy wagons and apparatus. For this req son the booking is seldom certain for more than six weeks in advance, be- cause any sort of trouble may arise anywhere in a longer time and frus- trate the best endeavors of everybody to make the engagement a success. When you stop to think that every day, rain or shine, the expenses of the Barnum &s Bailey show are more than $6, 900, you can appreciate the gravity of the situation and the extreme care with which the booking department has to lay out the route. This year the show has entered upon the most pretentious trip in it's history. Tray cling from coast to coast, it will be seen in nearly every city and town of importance in every state of the Union. besides appearing in the Do- minion of Canada and in Mexico. So extensive a tour has incerased the difficulty in arranging and for months a corps of circus officials has been busy studying both their own and the governments reports of local con- ditions in every dot on the map. So far the results of their efforts have been truly wonderful and are a dis tinct testimonial to their ability. Rain. sickness. financial unrest and disaster have been avoided in a way almost miraculous Their success has nerved