Baraboo weekly news. [volume] (Baraboo, Wis.) 1912-197?, 1920-05-06
ALF T. RINGLINGS NOVEL, ROMANTIC AND
GENEROUS PLAN FOR A PERMANENT TRAINED
ANIMAL SHOW AT Villas PARK MADISON WIS

Alfred T. Ringing, great circusman,
who, at the age Of G2, Sied Oct q last
at his country place near Oak Ridge.
N. J. proposed, about a yea. before,
to supply some twenty-five or thirty
animals. wild and domestic, for a no.
vel auxiliary feature to the Villas park
zoo. He already has given the fine
elephant now thereto which in the
following letter he alludes as "Annie
Catherine."-and generously wished to
do more. He had visited the park and
was more impressed with the choice
quality of the animals constituting
the ZOO. Mr. Ringing was Ill with a
bad heart at the time of making the
offer. His letter, to o. D. Brandon
burg, is so characterised mirthful,
romantic, kindly and far seeing that
it is here given, with only few in
innate personal illusions omitted:
. = = =
i Oak Ridge, ". J., Sept 7th, 1918.
! MY dear o. D.-I have been on
the elusive second, which precedes
doing a certain thing for six weeks
That something was writing to you
an epistle. A procrastinator, who
always gets in my way, interfered with
my intentions. Otherwise you would
have heard from me number of
times. But the tale is thus: About
the time the show was in Madison,
or, to be exact a little before, | was
having X-rays, skyographs and full
roscopes made by the doctor. These
brought my interior anatomy into
such Illuminating clearness that the
doctor said, as nearly as I can quote
him: "You can go to bed and get
well Or keep up your present activit-
les and go to the devil
He could have made a rhyme of
that but he seemed to care most for
clearness Of expression. He also
said I had more intelligence than
most of his patients and that was
why he was going to let me pick my
own route.
at once made up my mind that
as I had been ahead Of the show on
numerous occasions, might just as
well become the advance agent OF
my own health; and hence I went
home, crawled into bed, pulled up
the covers, and here I have been for
six weeks nearly without a word from
"Old dock as to the seasons closing
day. He says | have nothing the
matter with me except somewhat
high blood pressure and a slight dill
alton of one Of my arteries, which, he
says, | could make very much more
interesting if / cared to spend that
much for cocktails. The blood pres
sure, he says, has gone down remark
ably and is constantly descending and
the dIlated artery shows a lesSening
which he thinks will bring it back
to normal. So, under the circum
stances, I am not sorry to be in bed
and get better.
| must write to Doctor Dwight
and send him a check to cover the
freight on Annie Catherine.
Also | have in mind something that
| prefer to talk to you about before
broaching the subject to anyone else.
Would you think the Ma6is<p zoo and
the Madison people would care to add
trained animals to their collection?
This, | suppose, would be separate
department to the zoo, and I suppose,
would necessitate an arenic building
with seats, a ring, g stage "a price Of
To hn fr0i
Of the ZOO and, what is OF great impor-
lance, additional expense?
have the needed animals and
would be glad to present them free
to the zoo. The list Of trained ami
mails is as follows:
l. Act Of trained lions, males 1 !
female.
2. Act Of trained brown bears, 4 or /
5 of them.
4. Act of trained shetland ponies about |
10.
5. One Or two elephants added to the
one there now which would make |
a splendid elephant act.
The boys in the zoo could add to
these trained pig, goose, donkey and /
whatever they happened to develop,
and I believe in year or two the
Madison zoo would have something
different and more popular than any
thing of the kind in this country.
People from all over the state would
be attracted, and it seems like two or
three performances a week ought to
pay the expenses, which of course
would need to be moderate.
| cannot help soaring little on any
subject l get interested in and | feel
that you will not mind it if say that
a building answering the purpose Of
a performing arena could be used in
many other ways. One in particular
has occurred to me, and that is the pro-
ducJion of tableaux and spectacles of
certain dramatic limitations. Take theI
many Indian legends and historical! In