The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-08-17
"TODY" HAMILTON,
 GREATEST PRESS AGENT, DIES AT 70
Publicity Man of Barnum & Bailey Circus Was Known
 All Over Country.

Richard F. Hamilton, famous the
 world over as "Tody," the greatest publicity purveyor that America has
 known, died at his home in Baltimore yesterday at the age of 70 years. ! MT. Hamilton, who was well known 1, in this city, not alone by the circus people connected with the Barnum & Bailey show, but by newspapermen and prominent residents of Bridge port, had not been here for many years. Since his retirement from ac- tive work with the circus, about 13 years ago, has had been engaged in developing certain patents in which he was interested. Last year for a short period of time he had assisted in publicity for a widely known New 1 York amusement park. :.
 There are many in this city today who were actively associated with MT. Hamilton, among whom are Mrs. Charles Hutchinson, mother of the present treasurer of the Barnum & Bailey circus, Jeff Callan manager of the Plaza theatre, Julian Sterling, the writer, Harry Merriam at Silver beach, formerly in the treasurer's depart ment of the circus under the Barnum & Bailey management, and scores of circus people.
 All join today in expressing the most profound grief at his demise and re- call many incidents in his life which tended to make the Barnum circus what it is today.
 Of fine physique, commanding and handsome appearance, Hamilton, who descends from a family of newspaper owners, and writers, .often laid his success to close study of the show business plus study of the diction- ary. It is said that he went over the columns of. the biggest dictionaries many hundreds of times to cull words applicable to the circus and its en- vironment. He made a particular study of animals.
 It is related that he was in many friendly disputes with editors and photographers about the meaning and spelling of words, never once being found incorrect. His "copy" became standard throughout the country and was never edited.
 It is recalled that New York awoke one morning to read glaring headlines of wild beasts loose in Central park. / A column was devoted to the scare with three lines at the conclusion of the story indicating that the preced- ing lines were merely the supposition of writer showing what might hap pen fin such an event. The yarn was always credited to the fertile brain of Hamilton
 It has always been conceded that the biography of P T. Barnum while fully credited. to the fertile pen of Charles Stowe, an able writer, was compiled largely from the research work done by Hamilton.
 Much that is known today about the peculiarities of animals, their likes and dislikes. are due to the experi- ments of Hamilton, demonstrated be- fore writers from all sections of the East and brought to Bridgeport for that purpose.
 The Atlantic hotel and the Ster- ling house, now known as the Arcade hotel, have been the scenes of great ;banquets at which Hamilton, P. T. Barnum and later James A. Bailey have participated as hosts to the greatest geniuses of the newspaper world.
 The unique phrasing in circus ad- vertisement conceived by Hamilton have survived in the circus world and today are widely copied in all amuse- ment print. His style will long remain as a monument to his genius.
 Hamilton was born in New York in 1S47, the son of the editor-in-chief of the New York Herald. He ran away to San Francisco at 12 years of age and entered the journalistic field. At the age of 25 years he had cleaned up half million dollars in Wall street. He owned a seat on the cotton ex- change. He went broke and later be-