Atlanta Georgian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, 1913-10-27
CIRCUS PROVES LURE
TO A RECORD CROWD

And the answer is that they don t
do anything, which means that they
are regular folks and spend Sunday
just about like sthe average Albanian
spends his. They just LAY around"
read the Sunday papers-mostly The
Sunday American, by the way-and
take things easy.
TIA Letter Reading Day.
All of them are reading letters, be-
cause there Is always big packet Of
mail for everybody on Sunday, and
they read over again all they have
gotten from home during the week.
The old people will be telling stories
to the youngsters, and some of the
foreigners win have sought quiet
hooks for soul stirring struggles WITH
English dictionaries, and scores Of
them will be lying on their backs in
the open and gazing dreamily at
nothing at all.
And there is always crowd CT
them sitting around on empty buck
cts and on wagons and on the
ground, watching the crowd that has
come to watch them. And since all
circus people are students OF human
nature and know more about it than
all the savants that ever put pen to
pa per, they get more fun out of the
crowd than the crowd does out Of
them.
Now, mot doing anything" does no.
apply to the "razorbacks." 1t seems
sometimes that when someone wrote
in the Good Book that there shall
be no rest for the wicked" he must
have been thinking of the circus IRA
zorback." He works all the time.
And the animal men are never still,
but it Is because they love their
beasts
Take old Andre, for instance. He
h,s a last name which is so Hunya-
rian or Austrian or something that it
Is unpronounceable, and he wouldn't
leave his beloved girsffes for mo
ment-not for a million dollars. And
he has chickens and geese, and
things that have no connection with
the circus, but which are his mascots.
They go wherever he goes, riding in
the cars with the iratfes-and the
old man spends his Sundays talking
to his CRATES and his chickens.
=" All Look Busy.
When first you enter the "lot"-on
a Sunday--you think everybody is at
work Hundreds of "razorbacks"
and canvasmen are running hither
and yon, all in a seeming tumble,
chaos out of which it seems impos-
sible should arise the order Of Mon
day. You walk along with the crowd
lodging six and eight horse teams
drawing heavy cages, conveyed by
the inevitable escort of small boys.
Down by the old skating rink is
what on Monday will be the menag-
erie. Everybody is at work there.
Men are unloading countless bales of
hay for the elephants, and there is
the smell of fresh meats and the
roars OF the animals. The crowd is
there, too, trying to get a glimpse of
the wild beasts from the lion down
to the immortal pair from the Ham
burg show, "the elephant and the wild
kangaroo" 1t keeps score of men
busy routing the sorties of the small
boys,
Then you go down to where the
big top lies stretched out on the
ground, ready for hosting. There
are a hundred men sitting cross
legged, sewing on the canvas and
getting it ready to go up. To the
right of the big top" is a creek, over
which the circus has, built bridge.
Then the Honeyreonsrs.
You cross the bridge and run
plump into Jim Rutherford and his
wife-Jim Rutherford who on Mon
days is a clown. but on Sunday is
lust folks. They are sitting on up
turned water pals, reading letters
from home. Then some one tells you
their story, and you realize why they
are called the "honeymooners of the
circus"