Year: 1871

IL Is pain why Ine FORMER generations
were unfriendly to amusements of the
circus class. They didn't need 'em.
Families were large, the old and young
remained under the same roof, and the
antics of a parcel of irrepressible children
III natures tights occurred as regularly
with bedtime In winter and sdaylight in
summer, as morning and evening prayer,
and kept the household in succession of
entertainments with the unprecedented
run of twice 365 performances in year.
There used TO be marvellous "Bub" in
every family to whom no India Rubber
Brothers could hold candle--continu-
ally bringing down the house "-tearing
1t down, the old people thought-soii1e.
times. People who kept their private
troupe of gymnasts and dancers would
scarcely sympathize with the privations in
circles not so we'll supplied.


Upon old style farms there were hun
dred things besides, that the people of
our manufacturing villages have to give
half dollar to see the like Of Barnum's
happy family" is but meager substi
tute for the continual pleasure of watch
ing the habits of the feathered families of
ones own rearing. A fair assortment of
the four-footed animals of the farm yard,
is an open page of natural history-better
than any menagerie can afford, because of
the chances for observing character. Pigs
display their selfishness and pugnacity as
soon as born, almost, and root, scramble,
and fight for their own duodecimal of
udder Sheep are admirable studies of
physiognomy-they say Uncle Peleg c.
could tell every one of his hundred and
fifty as we'll as any person can designate
the members of his own flock-by their
faces. The least experience of the other
domestic animals convinces us of their in
finite variety of physical and intellectual
gifts. For the peculiarities of .our own
stock our eyes and ears, sharpened by un-
selfishness, become as acute as an Indians
or an artists, and to lean over the fence
occupying free seat in the pit, so to speak,
must have been perpetual delight to our
Puritan ancestors.


l heard the member of the former gen
Grafton who restrained me from attending
the circus as long as he conveniently could,
making considerable noise out back of the
barn, quite early in the morning. Cries
of Shoe !-s'ter-boy ~ and so on-as if in
some squabble with animals. Ifound him
in what had been little 20x20 feet back
yard, with three calves of six or eight
weeks old, whose lives, hitherto, had been
passed upon a semicircle of the barn floor,
at the end of-a rope. The former genera
ton was enacting the part of Master of
the Ring. He had concluded, it seems, to
let these calves out to grass TO run and
caper and become something used to
outside life in the cool of the morning-so
that they shouldn't hurt themselves, and
rather thOughtlessly he was keeping all
the sport to himself He had let down the
bars, but not calf would venture over
hoA 10 ntrio
gyrations about the yard, coming rather
suddenly in contact with one another, or
the fence, and had grown cautious. They
couldn't be driven through the bars. Then
one side of the fence was pulled away
leaving no line but green turf to mark
the end of the old yard and the beginning
OF the paddock they were at liberty to race
in. The calves stared at the grass with
eyes that had only seen sunlight through
the plenteous cracks in the old
barn. The Master of the Ring
had no whip, but he swung his hat
and gesticulated vehemently. The calves
continued to gyrate prisely as if there was
no outlet to the yard-facing the green
grass of the open inside, when brought to
a stand, as if it were the Connecticut
River. At this moment somebody
laughed.


Get over here and help me drive 'em
out-can't you?"


"Why not wait minute and let 'em
think it over? That big feller's got his
head bruised-we shall have to lift him
over the line-or blind fold him. Wait
till the children come out to see 'em caper
cant your"


But the days programme pressed and
the balance of the family lost its fair pro-
portion of the fun that was going. If we
had set the day and given out notice with
handbills, and so on, and free tickets to
reporters, perhaps not much of a crowd
would have got together, but it is poor
economy to let slip innocent chances for
household mirth at such a cheap rate,
while we pay our hard earned dollars for
questionable amusements from abroad.


After the calves were in the paddock
whether from the encouragement of the
one with the bruised head or what-the
excitement was not so great, aud the for
mer generation took occasion to remark
critically, that he'd "seen calves jump
higher'n them. ."-HGrJord CourGnt.