WHEN THE
V4,:
I "fa'
1" ?
Ft
Dosing a Sick Camel.
Those who go to the circus seldom
ti) to think of the hUKe amount of
lahnr involviJ in Kottinf? the (Treat
nhow n;ifly for the "road" and keeping
it iiji to the mark dnrinK its long pere
prlTtatlona throuRli tti, couitry. When
it leaves its winter quarters it has
l'"-n made Kpi k-nnd-span in every de
tail :y a vpiitHo'-- array of workers.
Vn.' followiriK dfucrlption, wrltetn at
l-rldK'-port. Conn.. ;iift- hf.r- tita cir
citM Ktiirtd on Its wanderings, makes
It i.iilte Hear th.it -h-r- i little rest
"or ircus folk iii'in ths months be
fore th xnnw is off th ground and
thi- Klsnal to start i: "jlvi.-n.
ALTON roaring, buzz-saws hum
ming, a couple of hyenas bark
ing, anvils clanging, an elephant
trumpeting, a planing mill sing
ing, camels grunting, hammers pound
ing, a man whistling "Too M.tch Mus
tnnl" while he , 'greases tho axles of a
Itoman chariot, the engine of an ex
ptcHH train shrieking for clear tracks
an It flies through a cjty of 115,000 Hi
habitants There is one place on earth where
you can hear this strange chorus a
blend of primitive, wild life notes with '
those of busy, twentieth century civil
ization; and that place is the wiiter
juart rs of the Barnum & Bailey great
est show on eartli at Bridgeport, Conn.
That there should be roaring of Hons
and barking of hyenas and trumpeting
cf elephants and grunting of camels
does not surprise you. ., "
The whistling man, "Too Much Mus
trd," and the Roman chariot cause
no surprise, cheerful ' men, popular
tunes and Roman chariots being fa
mllior features In any'clrcus tout en
eemble wherever the same be located.
A Busy Army
Rut how about the humming buzs
niws. the clanging anvils, the singing
Idanlng .mill, and the pounding ham
mers? What are these evidences of
prosaic, everyday toil doing In the
winter home of our old, bolsteruos,
apparently care-free friend the big
three ring circus?
Ask Carl Hathaway, keeper of the
circus payroll, also one of the world's
champion ticket sellers and quick
.change makers. He will tell you 'that
day in and day out there are 200 or
more people at work in the winter
quarters.
What dues this regiment find to do
during the hibernation of the circus .
a period that stretches from the com
ing of hard frosts and ripening chest
nuts to the first balmy breeze that
makes the young commuter's fancy
ALMOST
WHEN the Bible translation board,
which lias just completed the
first translation of the Hebrew
Bible into Knglish under Jewish aus
pices, held its last session at the Jew
ish TheiOlogJcal seminary of America
not long ago, its members were - in
vited to view the. seminary's collection
of Bible manuscripts and ancient
prints, which had been set up specially
lor that exhibition
And then, to the general surprise of
most who viewed the exhibits, it was
learned that the seminary library, one
of the, youngest of its kind, had in the
last teA years gathered together a re
markable collection of Hebrew manu
ticrlpHf and prints, far surpassing any
collection in this country, and second
in size and importance only to the
collection of the British mubeum and
tile Bodleian museum .in the Old
World.
A theological seminary library lias
a heavy adjective clapped us a handi
cap to Its name '"theological" is a
word suggestive, a a rule, of ponder
ous volumes and dingy tomes dis
coursing upon that kind of divinity
which once brought upon the Scotch
'-lie taunt that they had a theology
but no religion. The more surprising,
therefore in the case "of the Jewish
Theological seminary's collection, is
tile fact that here there is little or
none of merely that but that through
out its great collection of age-worn
and iften faclwl written relics of the
past there breathe strange hints and
tales of the life of men and women of
ages long gone, of their hopes and as
pirations, their daily activities and oc
cupations. The ancient writings, in
vther words, are religious rather tha.i
theological.
As Dr. Solomon . Schechter, the ven
erable president of the Jewish Theo
logical seminary, puts the rase: "The
Jews were more interested in religion
than, in theology; they were less con
cerned with what Ood is than with
what Ood wants us to be. Man. there
fore, in all his activities, aspirations,
hopes, and expressions, physicial as
well as spiritual, becomes the centre
' of Jewish divinity."
And so there is to be found in the
age-stained records in the seminary
collection a most wonderful story of
THE
Hi
-I:
'"4
cell
lightly turn to thoughts of lawn mow
ers, bulbs, and garden rakes T
As a matter of fact, .except that
the circus has temporarily quit the road '
and ceased as a popular show, this'
four months' lay over in Bridgeport
is not a period of hibernation at all;
Inside the high fence that surrounds
the winter quarters, the circus folic
are as busy as a hive of honey-making
bees.
And here is the reason: The clrc.us
is on of the most self sufficient or
ganizations in the world no matter
whether It be "on the road" jumping
in "one day stands" from coast to coat
from Maine to Texas, or whether it be
in winter quarters, the. greatest show
on earth la all things unto itself
blacksmith, carpenter, painter, wagon
maker, harness maker, dressmaker, doc
tor, lawyer, Indian chief. (First stand
to the left in the freak room; fresh
UNRIVALED
man. The collection now consists of
44,000 printed volumes and 1700 man
uscripts. First comes the Bible. Kven a list
of the volumes giving the text of the
Hebrew Scriptures either in whole or
In part would make quite a "booklet It
self. The first thing that greets the eye
as one enters the manuscript room of
the seminary is a glass case contain
ing two scrolls of the law one from
Kalfung, China, where that scroll was
practically all that remained of an
extinct Judaism of ages ago in that
alien land; the other is from the great
Sahara desert -One can find, too, vol
umes finely illuminated, with mar
ginal glosses written in very minute
hand on the top and bottom and side
margins of the page, around the text
itself.
Besides the Bible, there are a vast
rumber of commentaries, starting long
before the rise of Christianity, and
gctfcg down to about 500 A. D. There
are commentaries on the Talmud, and
sub commentaries on these, each com
mentary in the course of time assum
ing itself for future generations some
what of the authority of a text. Yet
though the commentaries change con
tinually, the Bible itself, though re
vealing itself through them, remains
unchanged. Even where the commen
taries have not the merit of convey
n. the meaning of the Bible, they give
valuable information concerning the
.. .... uie.r ume, and thus make
history. .
More personal than the printed
books, however, are the manuscripts
in the seminary collection. Most of
them still bear the name of the person
for whom they were written, aid as
the writing or copying of books in
those days, was a matter of great ex
pense, the names thus left are for the
most part of persons - of wealth and
prominence in their day. Likewise, the
parchment is frequently very fine,
with elaborate and beautiful ornamen
tation, illuminations, miniature illus
trations., and the like. Richest of all,
. however, is the personal element in
the prayer books, in which, in ages
dim and now almost unimaginable,
human souls sought comfort and sol
ace and relijl from anxiety or trouble
OREGON SUNDAY JOURNAL, PORTLAND, " SUNDAY
CIRCUS CHRY
In
SI!
361
...'.jr.'
1. i &
K3
A Strenuous
Pet.
(To the Left)
The Elephants Are
Useful in
Moving.
(Centre Picture.)
Importations from the Sioux reserva
tion.) '
; All that the circus asks from the
country that it travels through Is a
supply of food for man and beast, and,
of course, an enthusiastic exchange of
quarters, half dollars and dollars for
admission tickets. Everything else the
circus attends to itself.
The things that are included in that
two word phrase, "everything else,"
are many and diverse. One of the iron
rules of the circus is that it must be
absolutely spick-and-span; that it must
look as fresh and cheery colored as a
May shower rainbow. But in the hurry
and bustle, stress and strain of circus
life on the road, .paint is chipped, gilt
is tarnished, harness broken, eques
trian gowns' torn, acrobat suits ripped,
howdahs dented, slapsticks cracked,
horseshoes cast, tents slit, ropes
frayed.
COLLECTION OF JEWISH MANUSCRIPTS IN
Thanks to Dr. Solomon Schechter and Others, Jewish
Theological Seminary of America's Treasures Are Sur
passed Only by the British and Bodleian Museums.
through prayer. These, as Dr. Alex
ander Marx, the librarian, reverently
described them, are "spiritual locks '
left as mementoes of a world long dis
appeared." ' All told there were-110 manuscripts
in the seminary collection which fig
ured in the recent Bible exhibition,
including 70 very old Bible manu
scripts and translation or commen
taries on the Bible in Arabic, Aramaic,
Spanish, Italian and many other
tongues. Some of the manuserips are
age eaten and fragmentary, but ; the
great majority of them are finely pre
served specimens with text almost as
clear as in the days when the scribe
first traced the characters laboriously.
Many are. finely illuminated, with il
lustrations of deft and beautiful -workmanship
in rich and brilliant coloring
amid the solemn black type of their
retlgious or philosophic dissertations. -'From
many and strange places came
, these . manuscripts from .. places - as
widely apart almost as the ends of the
earth, as distant as the far wander
ings of their scattered and wandering
race. From Jerusalem, their ancient
home and citadel,- seme of them came;
and from Tiberius, and Aleppo, and .
from Alexandria., and Cairo, from the
Sahara desert and frjm China, and '
from under the; shadow of the papal
throne in - Rome- From London t and "
from Hamburg and Berlin, Paris . and
Vienna came some . of . the v ancient .
texts, with interesting marginal com- ;
ments often unwittingly Illustrative of
the social and political conditions of
the times in which the writers lived.
Many of- the most precious manu- -:
scripts were obtained .:- from musty
Genizalis (hiding places) kept by Jew
ish communities of - old .s storage
places for thebr ancient and discarded
writings of Holy Writ. For the holy
law and comments upon it may not be
thrown carelessly aside after they
SAL1S BECOMES
After Hibernating All Winter, There
,,. Is Much to be Done . Before the
Bi Organization Is Ready to
Dazzle the Country with
Its Splendor.
so
1
It Is to make these and ten thousand
and one other repairs that the circus
carries with it a trained band, of ready
workers with brush and paint pot.
with hammer and saw, with anvil and
forge, with needle and shears.
And it Is these obscure circus folk,
these blacksmiths, carpenters, painters,
wagoninakers, harnessmakers and
dressmakers,'" folk that enjoy none of
the bespangled glory of the arena
it is these obscure toilers, together
with the head "animal men," who are
the only all-year-round circus folk. .
Now, let ua see iiow these all-year-round
circus folk are kept busy during
the months that the show is in -winter
quarters "Well begin with the work"
necessitated by the great colony of
four-footed circus folk.
First the horses. A census would
show that there are about 690 of them
in the Barnum & Bailey stables. Over
400, of them are known as "work
stock." They are used when the show
is on the road, to haul the wagons of
many descriptions between railroad
yard and circus-lot.
But there is nothing mean and
scrubby about this stock of humble
designation. In addition to the strict
ly utilitarian task already mentioned,
it is used to haul the band wagons
and cage wagons and floats in that
"glittering pageant," the street parade
a circus feature, and a popular one,
too, in every town that the show plays
in. New York and Brooklyn excepted.
If evex you have seen one of these
street parades you do not need to be
told that this "work stock,'' in appear
ance and spirit, lives up to the gilded
vehicles it hauls, to the brass-studd-Td
narness and trappings it wears.
To get this kind of stock means that
have served their day in the syna
gogue; every particle of old manu
scripts must be guarded religiously
. from profanation for all time, or else
buried or destroyed by fire. Thus
many old synagogues kept in some
inaccessible corner a musty Genizah,
where the old books were stored for
safekeeping.
Dr. Schechter, when he was still
connected with the University of Cam
bridge, years ago, came upon one of
thre greatest of these collections of old
writings in the Genizah at Cairo; and
his scholarship, combined with his wit
and geniality, so won him a welcome
among the Jews of that community
that when he left Cairo the Genizah,
with all its treasures. Was his. Schol
ars) for many generations to come will
find rich fields for research in de
ciphering and Interpreting the his
toricar treasures thus brought to the
light of a latter day. '
One of the manuscripts .from Dr.
Schechter's find in the Cairo Genizah
is a deed of emancipation of a slave
from his mistress, which reads:
"On this twenty-fifth day of Tjar of
the year 1396. according to the era
which we always apply .(!.' e., the
Selucidiamera, dating from 4the reign
of Alexander the Great, hence the year
1085 vf - the Christian era) here in
Fostat. which is situated in Egypt on
" the River Nile, t, Mudalalah, tho
daughter of Solomon, with my free
will and without any compulsion, have
given you your freedom to you, Mak
luf. and all that belong to you you who
' were my slave before, and now I freed
you and released you and made you a
-free man. Now you belong to your
self and you have the power to make
' t or-yourself a name in Israel and to
marry a Jewish woman and grow up
in the community of Israel like the
other free men. And neither I- nor my
heirs after mo or whoever will come
" MORNING, APRIL 19, 1914.
.Z.2.-r
0
the circus company has ! paid an
average of J 700 'per team. For some,
more than $1000 was given' in ex
change. "The Ring Stock"
With these figures' in mind, lojk
down the long barn there are four
rows of stalls, making two long vistas
of sleek haunches and switching tails.
Look down this long barn and you get '
some idea of the responsibility that
rests upon the head hostler i of the
Barnum & Bailey show. . And, In ad
dition to this huge Btableful,; he has
under hls official wing tho "ring
stock" which is kept in another barn:
42 special parade animals, 30 Arabian
stallions, 40 thoroughbreds and Jump
ers, 28 trick horses, and 50 ponies.
It takes 40 men to look after these
two stables, and ten tons of hay are
pitchforked daily into their many man
gers. Now let us move over to a squatty
brick structure that measures about
100 feet by 70. In the interior is a
42-foot ring, and hobbled around thin,
with faces to the wall like naughty
children, are the 23 charges of Harr
Mooney, the boss elephant man.
Mooney himself sleeps at his hone
in Bridgeport (both home and elephant
barn have telephone xionnection, how
ever). His six helpers sleep In a bunk
room overhead, one man always being
on duty at night. Bedate as the ele
phant looks. It Is in reality a nervous,
high'-strung animal. If left to them
selves they are apt to get to gossiping
perhaps of the old jungle home and
the good old times. Be that as it may,
it takes very little -of this gossiping
to breed a spirit of militancy which, if
undiverted by a strenuous application
in my place shall have any "power over
you or your son to enslave them in
any way, and here this shall serve
unto you as a deed of manumission and
a letter of release and a token of
your freedom according to the laws- of
Moses and Israel."
The' deed is signed by the mistress
and four witnesses.
The authors of some of the old
manuscripts are unknown. Others. took
care that their names should; not re
main unknown. Thus, for example, in
the famous Mahzor Vitry, a ; French
prayer book and code of laws, the .
thirteenth century copyist Eleazor Bar
Samuel, took pains so to form the
lines of the text on one page that, by
a sort of optical illusion -when one
stands. at a distance from the page,
there flashes out in ' large, plain let
ters formed by that text the name of
Mr. Eleazor Bar Samuel, j
Another author - whose name has
been preserved for an age of which' he
little dreamed was a 14-year-old Jew
ish lad of Italy. In 1475 Samuel of
Modena copied in a fine hand a
Hebrew grammar , by - Judah j Messer
Leon, and addedv this note over his
own name; "I finished this book when
I was 14 years old, on Friday, the
24th of Tamur, of the year 4235.
Of about the same period are several
fine Italian Hebrew ' manuscripts In
the seminary collection. One is a com
mentary on the Bible by Emanuel of
Rome, a Jewish poet who was a friend
of Dante. Another, a prayer book, was
written in Ferrera in 1528.byj Farris
sol, the first Hebrew writer who men
tioned Columbus. This manuscript is '
finely Illustrated. There is also an
illuminated fourteenth-century' Penta
teuch, with . the Song of Songs writ.
ten in minute, i almost microscopic
characters In the curves of a brilliant
and elaborate illustration. Anothtr,
A BUTT
'... 1.fC.wLi
x- .-.v w". v jfcr--."
mi
-H.-f.fi?,
r?2
of the elephant hook, would make a
Pankhurst suffragette outbreak look
like a lambkins gambol.
Whether or not the elephants gossip
ft their old jungle home, Mooney has
got to keep those days of free exercise
and lush eating in mind. Hay, a ton a
day; sugar beets, three bushels daily;
hot bran mash, 500 pounds, every Fr'.
day, and carrots, two bushels a week,
given as tidbits if tricks are well done
that Is the bill of fare in the ele
phant barn. Add to the foregoing,
plenty of fresh air and exercise and
you have the regimen for a healtny
elephant herd.
ISvery good day the entire herd la
taken out and, as Mooney express..-
"given a blow." At the same time
the barn is thoroughly aired.' If th
weather Isn't propitious, the elephants
are exercised In the indoor ring.
Now for the extensive and varie
gated, family of John Patterson, head
animal man. It includes lions, tigers,
leopards, hyenas, bears, hippopotami,
camels, zebras, yaks, kangaroos, and
Bo on down through a long list of
other strange beasts, including, -of
course, a colony of monkeys. The
giraffes -.four of them, including a
baby giraffe only two weeks old and
the rhinoceros are In a separate room
and constitute the circus family of
Andrew Zingraher.
Just a moment's glance at the bill
of fare required by the families of
Patterson and Zingraher. All thi
members of the cat family get beef
daily A lion takes 18 pounds at a
meal. V)n Sunday they are given milk.
If one of the big cats is off its
feed half a dozen eggs- beaten up in
milk are used to coax it back to
health. When it is convalescing, a
chicken diet is given until it c;i gt
,back to the regular heavy beef mealn.
The -0 camels are fed 35 pounds of
hay each day and also four quarts of
oats. Surprising as it may seem-, tlii
hippopotami get only &0 pounds of hay
per day each. Just 15 pounds more than
the comparatively light-weight camel.
The zebras, pacred cattle, yaks, gnus
and other hay-eating animals account
fourteenth-century prayer book, pre
sented to the seminary by Felix War
burg, utilizes the margin of the pages
by placing there, around the illuminat
ed writing of the prayers, the text of
the Pentateuch.
The ancient writers, before thes.s
days of scarcity of white paper,
seemed to have had instead 'a scarcity
of parchment, for they insisted on, ut.
lizing every olt of available space.
Thus, the seminary has one prayer
book, written In tiny characters, with
a wide margin, by a French Jew of
the thirteenth century; a fifteenth
century German Jew, however, prompt
ly utilized the wide marginal- waste
by placing there a code of the law.
One of the most famous works to be
found in the seminary's collection -of
first-edition prints is that known un
der the name of the Complutensian
Polyglot,, composed under the direc
tion of the Church in Spain in 1514
to 1517, and originally in the Iute
of Grafton's library. Besides the He
brew text it includes all the ancient
versions Greek, Chaldalc, and Latin,
and is followed by a Hebry-w gram
mar written by Alfonso de. Zamora, an
apostate from Judaism, under whoue
supervision the whole gigantic work
was executed. The seminary possesses
also the very rare second edition of
the grammar from the famous Da
Salba collection, to which is appended
a Hebrew letter of Alfonso, In which
he invitee his former co-religionists
to join the Catholic church as the
sole insurance of salvation. -
As one gets nearer fo modem times,
more and more odd afcd often gro
tesque features meet the eye in the
seminary's collection of prints and
scrolls. There is a Hebrew book of
the Proverbs with an Irish translation,
printed In-Dublin In 1840, by or for
Jewish Irishmen.
Many of the scrolls were written
under stranre circumstances and in
' strange surroundings. One, for exam-
nl amll of the Rook of Esther.
with brilliant color illustrations, tells
that it was the work of one Raphael
Judah Colorni, otherwise unknown as
to his antecedents or deeds. The au
thor wrote: .
ERFLY-.
. . 3
. . ,v. - . 9hX)&
4-
t Training a Dog on a Revolving
Platform.
for two tons of hay per week and
wagon load of carrots, potatoes an-J
cabbages. ,
Pampered Monkeys
The colony of monkeys requires the
most diversified menu of all the ani
mals in the entire circus. Their die
tary includes potatoes, rice, bread, ap
ples, bananas, and sweetened coffee.
One monkey, little as he Is, will get
away with an apple, a couple of ba
nanas, a bollefl potato, a couple of
olices of bread and a little rice every
24 hours.
And now for the prosaic side of the
winter quarters, the side that means
humdrum, work-a-day toil.
The circus blacksmith shop employs
21 men; its wagon shop, 12 men; its
planing mill, 15 men and its paint shop
40 men. During the lay-over In Bridge
port, these men are employed repair
ing and painting the 87 railroad car
that are used during the season In
transporting the show about the coun
try. They Even Build Car!
But that is not the only field of
the paint squad's multieolorous activ
ity; there are 62 chariots, band wag
ons and floats and 142 mounted cages
that must be made to look as fresh
and polychromatic as a tropic dawn.
It should be said here that repairing
and repainting the cars is not the only
work that the maintenance of the rail
road equipment entails. Circus life is
hard on cars. On account of the value
of the loads they carry, as soon as -one
shows any sign of weakness it is
discarded and a new one put In Its
place. This past winter 15 new cars
were constructed at the winter quar
ters. Then there are the harness men. four
of them, who are kept busy all winter
repairing and refurbishing.
Among the busy people In the win
ter quarters, Domichke and his marl
must not be overlooked. This tquad ia
employed overhauling the extenuive
lighting outfit with which th show
illuminates itself when it is on t
road. The size of this Illumination out
fit may be estimated from the fact
that it takes 150,000 -candle power to
light up "the big top" alone.
In the sail loft there are eight men
busy all through the winter, makltiK
canvas covers for the WHpons and
chariots and blankets for tho horses.
Repairing the tents Is another of the
tasks of the sail loft men.
Mrs. Wallace and her 38 dressmaker
must not be overlooked. Mrs. Wa -lace
Is mistress of the wardrooe an l
during the winter months In Bridge
port she supervises the making of tl.e
dresses for the circus per'ormers, both
two-footed and four-footed.
Then there are jeweled elcphan
robes and giddy camel trappings that
must be turned out by this room of
circus dressmakers. Just one figure
the cutting table in this room is 13
feet square. That gives you some
conception of what it means to make
an elephant robe.
And then there is the cook house,
where more than 200 men are fed thre
times a day. Everything about the
big show is big, appetites included. If
you don't believe Jt, auk Chef Burns
or his assistant, Charley Heather. They
will tell you of a gargantuan larder
supply that daily meets a Waterloo.
AMERICA
"I, Raphael Judah Colorni, have
written and painted this Megillah (the
scroll of the story of Esther) with the
help of my friend, Gamllel Elijah Mo
dena, while we were in prison in the
year 1784."
The seminary has a rich collection
of prints by the famous Sonclno fam
ily, Jewish printers of Italy, and later
of Constantinople. The Sonc'nos
printed many Hebrew books, and about
70 In Greek and Latin. One of the
Latin printed books printed by them
in the early -part of the sixteenth cen
tury, and now in the seminary collec
tion, contains a neat dedication to the
famous or infamous Cesar Borgia, a
person one "would least expect to find
so figuring in a work in a Jewish
theological seminary.
The nucleus of the seminary's li
brary of rarities was fuKhished in
' 1903, when Judge Mayer Sulzberger
of Philadelphia presented hia whole
collection of 3000 rare books whten
he had slowly gathered together for
Just such a purpose. Nearly half of
the known Incunabula were include.l
in this, as well as a large number of
first editions and some 400 manu
scripts. To this gift Judge 'iulzh-rster
subsequently added the l.brary of th
well-known scholar, J. H. Hsilter
fctamtn of Bielitz, Austria, consisting
of 5000 books and 200 manuscripts.
In 1&06 Jacob II. Schlff presr-nte 1
to the seminary the famoux In
schnelder collection of Berlin, con
sisting of aoout 3000 Hebrew bk,
1500 Jewish books and 30 manuscripts;
and in 111 Mr. Schiff added to th a
Tift the collection of the Biblical schol
ar, E. Kautzsch. Other donors to the
seminary library have been Maix an-t
Moses Ottinper, who provided import
ant reference books on Biblical sub
jects and some interesting manusci ipts
in memory of their father. .
Prof. Alexander Marx, the librarian
of the seminary, and professor of bl-.
tory on its faculty, is the non of Corn-,
merzlenrat Marx, head of a famous?
banking house of Koenigsberg. and H
descended from an old South German -family.
He Is '-one. of the foremost
scholars in history research, but has
acquired fame also a a bibliographer.
4