The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-08-21
From the New York Times. E<T ODY" HAMILTON had no rivals
 for the reputation of the great X act nraes apent that ever lived.

From the New York Times.
 <<" ODY" HAMILTON had no rivals
 for the reputation of the great
 \ est press agent that ever lived. The free space he got for Barnum ~ Bailey's circus ran into miles. He 1n- vented the modern circus poster, ana founded a school of alliteration all his own He put the Cardiff Giant and the sacred white elephant of Siam over on the great American public. He was the first to discover the resources of the English language in Gargantuan epithets, and to match them like bells in melo- dious series. Literary critics have given him the credit for the abandonment Of the allieration by poets of the present day, who concede that, since Hamilton s time, verbal tintinabulations of all kinds belong exclusively to the circus.
 Only a short time before he died "Tody'' Hamilton said in the office of the New York Times that during all the years of his connection with Barnum x Bailey's he had never seen their incom- parable show. He would not allow his conception of 1t to be distorted by con- tact with the details.
 When Hamilton first began to compose the posters for the big show his work was criticized as too florid, and efforts were made to cheapen his style by ex- travagant limitations of it. His reply was a. new series beside which his first eff forts were reserved and monosyllabic. His style survived satirical limitations, as did Dr. Samuel Johnson's, and is the foundation of the circus literature of to- day.
 Hamilton is noted as a press agent to- day, not only because he enriched the language of the common people. but also because he was fertile in producing genu- inc news stories which no office rules against press agent yarns could keep out of newspapers, and because he educated tho editors in most of the large cities in Europe to what the reading public was entitled to expect in the way of advance information about circuses. When he was once asked what was the best story he had ever landed he said:
 q think 1t was the one about the pro- test of the freaks. We were in London at the time, and I heard that the woman who nodded statues out of butter ob- jected to being classified as a freak, all
 though she was in that department of the show. She was a respectable little body, very fussy about the respect which should be accorded her as a solid mem Der of the lower middle class. I learned that others were dissatisfied. too, and I thought that MT. Barnum should be appraised of the fact.
 T encouraged the freaks to protest as a matter of fair play I communi- cated the state of their feelings to the London newspapers. The freaks held a meeting and protested once more that they were being unjustly looked down on we appealed to the British people fol ! a better name than freak. and finally 8 Canon of the English church suggested | prodigy. It was accepted, although he | must have failed to see that I had al ready referred to the wonders as the | peerless prodigies of physical phenome- Eors The freak signs were taken down The news of the protest spread all over England and the continent and was ca
 hled to this side of the water. It awak- ened interest in the breasts of all who thought that they were not receiving the
 respect due their station"