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About Southern Oregon miner. (Ashland, Or.) 1935-1946 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 13, 1935)
SOUTHERN OREGON MINER PAGE OF READING FOR THE FAMILY THE-NOMADIC CIRGILS Circus Clowns Cater to ths Popular Fancy. Prepared by National Geographic Society. Washington. D. C—WNU Service. N MIDSUMMER the circus sea son Is at Its height Since early spring troupers have been don ning their costumes dally, and trained animals from every corner of the globe In colorful trappings have delighted young and old. Geographically, the circus has been a great eJucator. Long before ajtomobiles. motion pictures, and radio broke down the barriers be tween Isolated regions of the Unit ed States and the advancing world outside, the circus was taking its artists, its comedy, its music and Its nomadic college of zoology Into almost every state and territory. The world's largest circus might even advertise that It carries the original New York cast, because It takes on tour precisely the same show that opens in Madison Square Garden. Whatever else the peripatetic amusement venture Is or is not. the fact remains that It Is real. There are no circus “doubles" to perform the difficult feats, and there are no substitutes for those who may not feel "up" to the ordeal of two shows a day, “rain or shine.” Years ago leaders In this field of enter tainment learned that the formula for permanent survival Included a whole-hearted attempt to give the public something It never had be held before, surrounding it with a dazzling array of sustaining attrac tions. This hard-and-fast rule has persisted through the years, amid a procession of magic names: Jum bo, Tom Thumb; Chang, the Chinese Titan; Zachlnni, human cannon ball; Tom Mix. whose Rough Rid ers carry the spirit of the old West to every state In the Union: Goliath, monster sea-elephant; Ubangl sav ages from Darkest Africa. Because the circus is nomadic In Rs quest for business. It always has been of necessity a fighting Institu tion. Therein Iles one of Its major blds for fame. Like a gay explorer who finds each day’s Journey a fresh problem to tackle, the circus strug gles against a perfect maze of dal ly entanglements that threaten to ensnare It like a colossal Gulliver. The circus has battled the weather and it has fought grafting officials who threaten to dig up some ex cuse for fining or tying up the show unless complimentary tickets fly thick and fast. Hu^e Daily Overhead. The managements for yenrs have fought the argument that they take t<»o much money out of town. Peo pie overlook the fact that every big circus spends a large sum In every city in which it plays. The dally overhead of the largest circus Is In excess of $15,000, and a consider able share of It is spent locally for lot and license, straw, lumber. Ice cream, soft drinks, billing locations, and food for GOO horses. 36 ele phants, four herds of camels, hippo potamuses. an<l other large' appe tites In the menagerie, as well as for the three meals a day of the show personnel, whose gastronomic requiremeuts would stagger the chefs of a huge hotel. The commis sary uses dally 250 pounds of but ter, 200 pounds of coffee. 25 bags of table salt, almost a ton of fresh meat, 200 gallons of milk, 1,500 loaves of bread, 200 dozen eggs, half a ton of vegetables, a barrel of sugar, 50 pounds of lard. etc. Mud Is by all raids the outdoor showman's worst enemy. It sucks at the wheels of his wagons until elephants must be pressed Into service to extricate them, and It dampens the spirits of his prospec tive customers. Wet weather Is bad for monkeys, apes, giraffes, and cat animals, which are subject to throat and lung congestion. Add to this the fact that canvas triples Its weight when wet. Conquest of the golden fleece could be little more difficult than the tnsk that con fronts a circus manager who must drag his nomadic city from the clutches of the mire in time to play a matinee fterformance In a town a hundred miles away. In the old days, before movement by railroad was general, traveling was much worse. Springtime found country roads Impassable. Four teen horses were needed to pull a hippopotamus den when circuses traveled overland in wagons. Cir cus laborers still shout "China!" occasionally when the train ronrs Into the city of exhibition. This Is a circus term of another genera tion. When a driver, seated atop the first wagon In the caravan, sighted the show's destination, he called "China" to Indicate that after an all-night struggle they literally had dug their way through. Rivalry Used to Be Fierce. Previous to 1929 most of the big circus units battled with one an- Do You Know— That cigars a yard long are common among the Indians of the Amazon hinterland? They are inveterate smok ers and the long cigars are smoked by the whole tribe, each cigar being passed from mouth to mouth. C McClure Newspaper Syndicate. WNU Ssrvlca. other up and down the country from Maine to California and from Can ada to the Gulf. Sometimes they employed the most vitriolic phrases In characterizing rival circuses as worthless. When electricity first was used to Illuminate a circus tent, competitors solemnly warned the public to stay away from that show “because electric lights are known to he extremely dangerous amt blinding to the eyes!" Most Interesting were the “paper wars" conducted by the big and little shows prior to the late sum mer of 1020. The big circuses often bough? advertising space on barns and buildings In the dead of win ter. so thnt the location would not be snapped up by rlvnl concerns. Some of the shows had a playful little habit of covering ench other's posters when two shows saw fit to piny the same city on the same day or a few days apart. One of these pnper wars heenme so Intense when two circuses chose to book a California city within a few days of each other that the barns and billboards of the sur rounding countryside were plastered with a covering of circus pictures 28 sheets deep. The opposition bri gade of circus number one went out each morning to cover the adver tisements of the rival show. The brigade of circus number two went out every evening to recover with Its own hilling. They watched ench other so closely, these tireless ad vance men. that each knew when the other's crew left town to cover paper In the country. At Inst one of them played n master stroke. Two nights before the first show wns due to nrrlve. the brigade hired a hearse, climbed Inside with posters, paste, and brushes, and quietly loft town to do their work without attracting the attention of their competitor*. The advance advertising cars of the big shows carry large crews of ambitious workers who often aver age a posting of 10,000 to 12.000 sheets of circus lithographs a dny. A crew of 30 men can bill a large city In a single dny, so well do they understand their work. White Elephant Competition. Sometimes the tented enterprises tried to duplicate their rival's ace attractions. Barnum once Import ed a sacred white elephant from Slam. It wasn't pure white, but rather a cream color, and It cost a lot of money and trouble. Adam Forepaugh, then Barnum’s leading competitor, copied the Siamese al bino by applying a generous coaling of white paint to unclothed pnrts of a gray pachyderm. His elephant was so much whiter than Barnum's that the public decided Forepaugh had the real article—until one day during a street parade In Philadel phia, when a cloudburst exposed the Imposture. Even then skeptical show-goers refused to believe that Barnum's white elephant wns any more genu ine than the one they hnd seen exposed. Somebody asked Barnum what he wns billing as his chief attraction that season. He smiled and replied. ''I’ve got a white ele phant." Then and there he sup plied a distinctly American angle to the age-old white-elephant allu sion that to this dny Is used to de scribe something expensive which cannot be disposed of to any ad vantage. The big shows fought each other until the summer of 1929, when a great consolidation was effected. Now six of the largest tent shows, all Ringling owned, contend for pa tronage In friendly rivalry and try to keep out of one another's wny. Most outsiders think that every circus picks its complete route at the beginning of each season. In reality, they are routed only about six weeks in advance. Agents must study crop and factory conditions, epidemics of disease, and proximity of rival attractions, and must ar range to send the circus where Î BEDTIME STORY Î I By THORNTON W. BURGESS ANOTHER GAME OF HIDE AND SEEK . \f<»U remember the game of hide I and seek Danny Meadow Mouse played with Buster Bear? You re member what a very dreadful game It was for Danny? But hard ns It waa for Danny, it didn't begin to be ns hard ns the game Lightfoot the Deer waa playing with the hunter In the Green Fernet. In the case of Buster Bear and Danny,, the latter hnd simply to keep out of reach of Buster. As long ns Buster didn't get his great pnws on Danny the latter waftsnfe. Then, too, Danny Is a very small person. He Is so small thnt he can hide under two or three leaves Wherever he Is he Is pretty sure to find a hhllng place of some sort. His small size gives him advantages In a game of hide ami seek. It cer- Lightfoot Listened and Watched talnly does. But Lightfoot the Deer Is big. He la one of the largest of the people who live In the Green Forest. Being so big. It Is not easy to ffide. Moreover, a hunter with n terrible gun does not have to get close In order to Kill. Lightfoot knew all tlds ns he waited for the coming of the hunter of whom Sammy Jay I warned him, lie had leurned many lessons In the hunting season of the year before and hit remembered every one of them, lie knew thnt to forget even one of them might cost him hla life. So, ntnndlng mo tionless behind a tangle of fall en trees, Lightfoot listened and watched. Presently over In the distance he heard Sammy Jay screaming "Thief, thief, thief!" A little sigh of re lief escaped Lightfoot. He knew thnt screaming of Sammy Jay was a warning to tell him where the hunter was. Knowing just where the hunter was made It easier for him to know what to do. A Merry Little Breeze came steal ing through the Green Forest. It came from behind Lightfoot and danced away toward the hunter with the terrible gun. Instantly Light foot hogan to steal softly away through the Green Forest. He took the greatest care to make no sound, lie went In a half circle, stopping every few minutes tn look nnd listen and test the air with his wonderful nose. Can you guess what Lightfoot was trying to do? He waa trying to get behind the hunter so thnt the Merry Little Breezes would bring to hint the dreaded man scent. As long as he collld get thnt scent ho would know where the hunter was though he could neither see nor hoar him. If he hnd remained where Sammy Jay ha<l found him, the hunter might come within shooting distance be fore Lightfoot could have located him. So the hunter with the terrible gun walked noiselessly through the Green Forest, stepping with the greatest enre to avoid snnpplng a stick underfoot, searching with keen eyes every thicket and likely hiding place for n glimpse of Lightfoot and studying the ground for traces to show tlmt Lightfoot hnd been there. C. T. W Burfsss.—WNU Barrie*. Average Net Worth of Families Up --------- «------------------------------- the remaining 50 per cent were mortgaged. The average amount of life Insur ance owned per family was $7,710 Minneapolis. — The average In sured ..'.mlly has 30 per cent more In 1933, and $8,199 In 1935, an In cash In the brink today time It had crease of 0.3 (ter cent. The average net worth of earh In 1933, nnd Ims reduced the mort gage on Its home by 10 per cent In family. Including the equity In home, hut exclusive of life In the anrne two-year period, accord ing to a survey of 10,000 policy surance, wns $2.053 In the spring holder families by the Northwest of 1933, and had risen to $3,440 ern National Life Insurance com two years later, the survey showed, an Increase In nvernge wealth of pany In Minneapolis. 16 per cent. The 10,000 families An average reserve of $350 per were selected nt random from pol family of cash on hand and In icy holder lists. banks, was reported as of the A special survey of urban hous spring of 1933 In response to the ing conducted li, 61 cities by the Insurance company's questionnaire; United States Bureau of Foreign this compares wlttl. $164 per fam and Domestic Commerce showed a ily at the present time, an Increuse reduction In the average mortgage of $108, or 30 cr cent. on owner-occupied homes of 3.29 A reduction In the size of the per cent from 1933 to 11134. The average mortgage from $3,461 was fact thal the reduction for the two shown In the reports. Approximate years from '33 to '35 totaled 10.22 ly 49 per cent of the policy hold per cent In the Insurance company's ers Investigated were home own survey would seem to Indicate that ers; the average home valuation the nvernge family Is paying off Its was $5,301. Half of the homes obligations at an Increasingly owned were clear of encumbrances; rapid rate, the report concludes. Special Survey Shows Home Mortgages Reduced. 10,000,000 in Abyssinia there Is a probability of doing good Ethiopia, or Abysslnln, Ims a to business. Routing a circus is a tal area of 350,000 square miles and business science. a population of 10,INN),000, consist Business men In progressive cities ing of Semitic Abysslnlans, Somalia, ustinlly are glad to see a circus Arabs, negroes and Indians. Very billed for a visit to their commu little land Is cultivated, the Idea nity. It Is a barometer of pros of landed property scarcely being jierlty, this nomadic canvas city known. The rainfall, 30 to 40 with Its tremendous overhead, be Inches, heaviest In midsummer, pro cause It cannot afford to visit cities vides much of the water for the which are In the throes of financial annual overflow of the Nile * q depression. Egypt