The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1938-07-14

maybe it was the public; maybe it
was the management.
Fortunately the Ringing recess
sion has not made itself felt so
acutely among the lesser circuses.
Probably it's because these smaller
units play largely to non-metropoli-
tan audiences who haven't felt bad
business conditions so acutely. Ger
tainly there's no drouth so far as
numbers are concerned; the current
season boasts six railroad shows
| 1.-TWO of them brand new and Is to
| 20 truck shows. Add to that more
than $50 carnivals and hundreds of
fair and celebration units, and you
have a picture of the 1888 circus
field.
Tim Mccoy of motion picture
fame is reviving the days of the 101
Ranch and Buffalo Bill. Clyde Beat
ty and his cats frolic with the Cole
Brothers circus, which has a second
show on the road under the name
of Robbins Brothers. Then comes
Al G. Barnes-Sells-Floto circus and
the Hagenbeck-Wallace show. Most
of these are railroad shows with
20 to 30-car trains.
This years experience in the cir
Gus industry only goes to prove you
should never count chickens before
they hatch. Last April the boys in
winter quarters said it was going to
be bigger year than 1929, which
somebody is forever dragging out of
the closet for purposes of compari-
son. They looked at the greatest
advance demand for bookings since
the present crop of sawdust was
an acorn, and they looked back on
two preceding seasons that were the
best in years.
From George A. Hamid of New
York, one of the biggest eastern
bookers of acts for circuses, fairs,
carnivals and celebrations, came re-
ports that the demand for new and
unusual acts far exceeded the sup
ply.
eve could book hundreds more if
we could find them," he said. "The
demand for acts for celebrations,
such as those around the Fourth of
July, is three times what it was last
year."
Circus in Retrospect.
Old P. T. Barnum, were he alive
today, might say the industry has
become so big and complex that it's
collapsing. The man who started
out many years ago with a COM
bined museum menagerie circus
might scott at the huge institution
his successors now tote around so
painfully on special trains.
Certainly it's far cry back to the
night of April %, 1893, when George
Washington watched John Bill Rick
etts leap through a hoop from the
back of his galloping horse, regain
his footing and do dance on the
| saddle. That was one of the simple
joys of simple people, yet circus
showmanship today is substantially
the same, merely augmented.
It can be recalled that even in
the earlier days the circus was
humbug proposition. P. T. Barnum,
an old man when he reached the
prime of circus life, chortled with
inward glee at being called the
greatest humbug of his time" He
knew the value of advertising and
was genius at getting his name in
the paper.
It's interesting to speculate what
will hnoNy,oo 0f he H. 4.
equestrienne and the almond-eyed
maid from Tokyo, the Hindu mys-
tic and the rosy-cheeked English
athlete, all of them members of the
Ringing circus, all of them tempo
rarily out of job now that the
big One" has closed shop for the
year.
For old followers of the open road
this will be catastrophe. 1t will
be summer, with no circus tent to
move night after night, no blaring
midway. Just summer with green
grass, birds and free air, a phe-
nomenon many of them have never
before seen.
This summer you're apt to find
some top-rank circus talent filling
out the season with smaller shows,
anxious to make a living however
they can.
And next fall they'll find the road
that leads back to winter quarters
and home, or wherever they spend
the cold months. Many of them will
shake their heads and mutter:
''Never again-I'm through"
But next spring they'll be around
again and somebody will remem-
Der the bromide:
''The show must go on!"
g Western Newspaper Union.