Circus performer

“ You speak of my low associations, and call me a mountebank. In the town I have just left I was the guest of the mayor, and have promised to spend a week at his house on a visit when the circus season is over. Though you have done your best to lower me socially, I am confident that [Pg 123] I shall be able to win a good place by my own unaided exertions.
I have no intention in continuing as a circus performer, though I am very liberally paid. It is too soon for me to decide upon my future course, but you may tell Mr. Bickford he need not wait for me to resume my place in his shop. ”

“ Some of the circus managers do not dispose of the side show privilege, but run it themselves. Then, again, the manager of the big show rents out what is called the “concert privilege;” that is, the right of giving a minstrel entertainment within the canvas of the big show as soon as the regular afternoon and evening performances are over. This consists of a regular first part and variety minstrel entertainment, given by the circus performers, who can either play some musical instrument or dance; occasionally some of the ladies of the company dance. ”

“ And he who considers the psychology of the audience at a circus, he who (there are scientists sufficiently egotistic) looks into his own soul while a troupe of aërial acrobats are before his physical eyes, will see faith, strong and splendid.
[Pg 48] It is not (as some pessimists who never went to a circus would have us believe) the expectation that the performer will fall and be dashed to pieces that makes people enjoy a dangerous act. People are like that only in the novels of D. H. Lawrence and the merry pastoral ballads of John Masefield. ”

“ When a circus came to town, it seemed but natural for the boys of our neighborhood to club together and arrange a performance on a small scale, but as nearly like that of the professionals as possible. A back-yard was transformed into training quarters, and here we worked hard for several days before the show, imitating as best we could the stunts of the circus performers. Because one fellow could walk on his hands, and turn hand-springs, besides being the owner of a pair of tights, he naturally became the chief attraction ”

“ Isn't it a respectable business?"
"Yes; but there are many temptations connected [Pg 116] with it, and most circus performers never rise any higher."
Evelyn was not inclined to discuss the question, though there is no doubt that she took a more favorable view of the circus profession than her father. The procession had just begun to move round the inner ring of the circus, including the elephants, the riders, the clowns, and performers of all kinds. Kit appeared, as in the public procession, driving a span of ponies. ”

“ Circus performers wander about the world more 185generally, and to a greater extent, than the acrobats and jugglers who perform in music-halls, from whom they are separated into a distinct class by the requirements of circus engagements. All aspirants to saw-dust honours being engaged for ‘general utility,’ it is necessary for them to understand the whole routine of circus business, whether their specialty is riding, vaulting, clowning, or any other branch. ”

“ But his mother claimed to be of "genteel" family, and had imbued the boy with her own notions.
"What's the objection, if they are circus performers?" asked Sidney Grey, who might really have claimed aristocratic lineage if he had so desired.
"Do you consider circus performers fit company for you?" asked Ronald, superciliously.
"Yes, if they behave themselves like gentlemen; and these two look as well bred as we are." ”

“ The great unchangeable features of a show, the gymnastic, acrobatic and equestrian work, are the same now that it was a half century ago. Still with all its want of novelty it is attractive, as are all shows, and grown people have been known to share the enthusiasm of the little ones in playing circus after witnessing a performance and while the sawdust fever was still on them. ”

“ In my boyish days, the cry of ‘This way for the riders!’ bawled from the stentorian vocal organs of the proprietor or ring-master of a travelling circus, never failed to attract all the boys, and no small proportion of the men and women, to the part of the fair from which it proceeded. Fairs have become things of the past within twelve or fifteen miles of the metropolis; but ever and anon a vitenting circus pitches, for a day or two, in a meadow, and the performances prove as attractive as ever. ”

“ The clown announces to the audience, just before the big show is over, that the entertainment will be given immediately after, and those who wish to witness it can keep their seats. Several parties then skirmish among the assembled multitude and cry “tickets for the concert, twenty-five cents,” and just before the entertainment commences the tickets are collected.’
New York and New Orleans are provided with permanent buildings in which circus performances are given during the winter by companies which travel in the tenting season. ”

“ The interchange of circus performers between England and the United States, which has existed almost as long as circuses, has made us better acquainted in this country with the kind and quality of the performances to be witnessed in American circuses than with the manner in which they are 225conducted. Stickney and North were known and appreciated at Astley’s by the last generation, and the present has seen and admired, at the Holborn Amphitheatre, those inimitable gymnasts, the Brothers Hanlon, the incomparable vaulter, Kelly, and some others. ”

“ At the back door of every theatre—the entrance to the stage—is a cerberus of the most pronounced kind, who would sooner bite his own grandfather's ear off than allow anybody not entitled to the privilege, to pass him; while at the door of the circus dressing-room and all around it are faithful sentinels who will listen to no password, and through whose ranks it is as impossible to break as it is for the fat boy in the side show to throw a double somersault over seventeen horses, with an elephant as big as Jumbo at the far end of the line. ”

“ The reception tendered to the newcomers by the performers and clown who were busy at the time of their coming with their different parts was in marked contrast to that of the audience.
They were apparently frightened out of their wits and every one of them took to his heels, leaving the ring in the possession of the strangest group that, up to that time, had ever been seen at any circus, though it became a common sight afterward for the fashion of a new departure in circus performing was now being thus strangely set.
Without pausing, the monkeys took up the work of entertaining the people. ”

“ For my own part I can honestly say that I never in my life heard a concert announcement made in my show without feeling like getting up and leaving in disgust; but all classes of show-goers must be pleased, and there is one class which demands the concert and another class that wants the side shows.
A SILENT PARADE FROM ALBANY TO THE STATE LINE
I am glad to know that the circus man who speaks of his patrons as "gillies," and who endeavors to obtain his wealth by fair or foul means, is becoming more and more rare. ”

“ The stage pantomime is charming, but if you behaved in the presence of your true love the way Pierrot and Columbine behave, he or she, as the case may be, would probably decide that you were too much of a clown ever to become a responsible parent. The circus, too, though not properly to be classed as a form of art, combines and presents a vast number of interesting motions which you never expect to see outside the big tent. Dancers, pantomime actors, circus masters and performers, all clearly strive to collect our money by showing us the kind of motions which nature herself does not show. ”

“ They are required to take part in vaulting acts, to hold hoops, balloons, banners, &c., which requires some practice before it can be done properly, and to line the entrance to the ring when a lady of the company flutters into it, or bows herself out of it. For this last duty, the proprietors of the best appointed circuses provide uniform dresses, which are worn by all the male members of the company, when not engaged in their performances, from the time the circus opens until they retire to the dressing-room for the last time. ”

“ Peerless isn't speeding around the ring, lashing her spirited bareback horse to fury, amid the plaudits of admiring thousands, she is mending her tights, stitching tinsel on her costume, anointing her bruises with balsam, or practising. The practice of the circus rider is like the rehearsal of the actor, only more so, for while the actor has only to rehearse until his first549 performance and then can go on playing a part without further trouble, the rider must put in an hour or two every day to keep her joints limber and her muscles in proper trim. ”

“ They will find, too, that all the thrills of the circus life are not confined to the sawdust arena, but that there is every whit as much excitement and real peril in the daily life of the advance man on the advertising car ahead of the show. ”

“ This is Petrograd’s apology for a music-hall—in other words, it is nothing but the good old-fashioned circus.
Then, again, it is not quite the circus of one’s English youth, because it has a very distinct Russian atmosphere of its own. The point really is the enthusiasm of the audience, because it is an enthusiasm that in these sophisticated, twentieth-century days is simply not to be found in any other country in Europe. I am an old-fashioned man and, quite frankly, I adore a circus; and when I can find one with the right sawdust smell, the right clown, and the right enthusiasm, I am happy. ”

“ The training of a circus rider, a 316gymnast, or an acrobat begins as soon as he or she can walk. From that time they practise every day, and they are often introduced in the ring, or on the platform of a music-hall, at an age at which other children have not left the nursery. They wander over the United Kingdom—Europe—the world. The lads whom you see tumbling in one of the quiet streets between the Strand and the Victoria Embankment one day, may be seen doing the same performance a week or two afterwards on the sands at Ramsgate, the downs at Epsom, or the heath at Newmarket. ”

“ The work of the leading equestrienne is one of the most laborious in the whole range of the circus profession. It requires physical courage of the highest order, combined with great power of endurance and a capacity for adopting oneself to a constant change of scene and surrounding. People who witness only the 545brilliant performances in the ring in an atmosphere laden with light and music, little dream of the wearisome toil and drudgery which precede them. ”

“ If one can go far enough back to remember the awe and mystery surrounding a circus, and then imagine a circus coming bodily to lodge in one's own dwelling, to eat with the knives and forks at one's table—a circus which could swallow fire and swords, and things of that sort, just eating off plates in the ordinary manner, with Sissy waiting on the table behind its chairs—if one can get back to this happy time, it will be possible to comprehend some of the rapture the twins, Gess and Tell, experienced while Frosty La Rue's show abode at the Wagon-Tire House. ”

“ So into the great circus passes the long procession, and as it files into the arena, two hundred thousand excited people—think, boys, of a circus-tent that holds two hundred thousand people!—rise to their feet and welcome it with hearty hand-clapping. ”

“ The twelve nights we were engaged for, like the six at Hull, came to an end too soon; 266and my partner spoke to Henry, the manager, about our travelling with the circus, as we had set on minds upon doing. Henry, who was a very gentlemanly fellow, said he would mention it to the governor; and Newsome called us to him.
“I am afraid,” said he, “you wouldn’t be of much use to me. You have not been used to circus business, and you know nothing about it. The general routine of a circus is very different to a starring engagement, or a turn at a music-hall. ”

“ The circus is crowded full, and presents a spectacle of which it is impossible to form an idea unless one has seen it: it is a sea of heads, hats, fans, and hands waving in the air; on the side where sit the better classes in the shade all is dark; on the other side, in the sun, where the common people sit, a thousand brilliant colors of vesture, parasols, and paper fans—an immense masquerade.
There is not room enough for another child; the crowd is as compact as a phalanx; no one can go out, and it is difficult even to move one’s arms. ”

“ Everything about a circus is systematized so that the minute the evening performance is over, everybody jumps to his or her appointed task and works with a will, so that where there were tents with flags and banners flying at night, the next morning there is only a deserted sawdust ring. Circuses spring up over night like mushrooms and disappear as quickly as the dew on the grass when the sun comes up.
By midnight the circus train was well under way and Billy and Nannie found themselves in a cage between the zebra and giraffe. ”

“ The term “blower” is given to this individual because he talks so much and tells a great deal more than what proves to be true. A crowd 250always gathers about a circus lot early in the morning, and many a nimble tenpence is picked up before the procession is made in town. When that is over and has reached the lot, an immense crowd gathers around to see the pitching of the big canvas, and from them many drop in to see the side show. ”