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Show ' jhlllliliiiilM By PROEHL HALLER JAKLON '"AV "X-- ,- " I asked my mother for fifty cents j rpTg I To see the elephant Jump the fence. KvT- M 0 JJ Jk ! He Jumped so high he hit the sky. -N -hCTVl ) ' He won't be back till Fourth of July. XJ S"S&L IMES chnnBI! nnd fash' suaslve oratory served up free of fK,S 1 ilj l"m cl'anKe- 1ut '"e charge on the outside? &!;5V " ) circus, the ISIggest There's the midget, with his on- N'-'"v'V. Show on Earth, wlieth- chunking grin, reaching from ear to kaAf er u open its tent earj Ills calm munller and his dress 1 By PROEHL HALLER JAKLON Drawing by Hay Walters. I asked my mother for fifty cents To see the elephant Jump the fence. He Jumped so high he hit the sky. He won't be back till Fourth of July. IMES change and fash-tlf" fash-tlf" ions change. Hut 'he El circus, the Biggest A Show on Earth, wheth-er wheth-er It open Us tent ("1,wrmrM "'ips I" your town or Vt I mine, In your father's f time or yours, Is ever -"jVX , t10 mimc 0)j pageant of ( ikrf'Jj color and action. Tinseled ladles In tights smile as they fly through space at giddy heights ; clowns scamper insanely in-sanely around the arena; cowboys and girls ride lmwjly hither and thither; bareback riders leap nimbly from horse to horse. The circus goes on. Hero Is a human pyramid constructed construct-ed In u wink of strong men and strong women. Over there are seals balancing balanc-ing gaily-colored Kpheres on their noses and tossing balls to each other for the reward of a fresh fish. Jumping horses, white and pink tights, dashing vehicles with all the rings competing for our attention, we are at n complete loss as to where to focus It. We do not wish to miss anything, and si ill some of the very best acts get no proper attention because be-cause we are expecting something to happen somewhere else. Before certain n;ts the ringmaster shouts a loud announcement which no one understands. A blast of a trumpet and n long roll of drums to suaslve oratory served up free of charge on the outside? There's the midget, with his unchanging un-changing grin, reaching from ear to ear, his calm manner and his dress suit, strikingly out of place In the light of day. Then the giant, looking sheepish in his Ineffectual masslve-ness. masslve-ness. Next, perhaps, a Wild Man from Borneo or a pair of midget bushmen. The Fat Lady, whose proportions are unbelievable, bursts through a simple white dress, fa-shioned more after the dimensions of a tent than of any garment gar-ment designed for more personal and individual human occupation. In ridiculous ri-diculous contrast is the Living Skeleton, Skele-ton, that animated pair of walking stilts who exists, it seems, in defla-nce to nature's laws. The others are there, too. The Sword Swallower, the Fire Eater, the Glass Cruncher, the Snake Charmer (who flies into a rage if you as much as suggest that his pets are minus their sacs of deadly poison), the Two-headed Two-headed Sheep, pictured on the outside as alive and kicking as you would want, but found actually, after we've paid our money, to be lifeless and still, emhbalmed In a glass case. From the circus of Nero's time to the gay show as we know it, the word itself has meant fun and frolic and a good time. We say "Didn't we have a circus !" But the Roman youth was cheated out of one thrill of the circus he couldn't go down to the tracks early of a morning and watch the circus detrain. For this Is an event in the lives of little men. From the time the billposter sloshes barns and fences porarily halted. Long before scheduled sched-uled time, the line of march is lined with happy, carefree onlookers. Despite De-spite the crowd the street is strangely silent. Then some one shouts "Here ' they come !" And the parade is on. Circus men will tell you that the prestige of the enterprise depends to a considerable extent upon the length and quality of the parade. . A short, shabby parade conveys the idea of a dinky, mediocre circus. "Only one band? Two starved elephants? And no calliope?" A poor circus indeed, is the thought that runs through the disappointed crowd. Yes, the circus Is an old, old institution. insti-tution. Nero was a circus fan at a time when bread, Instead of peanuts, hot dogs, and pink lemonade, went together to-gether with circuses. This was the Circus Maxlmus whose 12,000,000 square feet of area lay between the Palatine and Aventine hills of Rome, and accommodated, it is estimated, nearly 250,000 spectators. Here the Romans sat round-eyed watching the feats of the strong men and laughed at the funny faces of clowns, dead now these 2,000 years. There were athletes and chariot races and living statuary only tights were considered not in good taste. And how the crowd would delight when those early Christians were thrown to the lions ! But, essentially, the circus is the same. All color, noise, confusion, abandonment, chaos ; so it starts, so it ends. It is the great leveler. You go In palpitating and come out exhausted ex-hausted physically, emotionally. To man, woman, child, it is all the sa-me. There are additions and deletions: new fashions and features change outside out-side and a few creep in to join with the changeless. Nero never saw elephants ele-phants on roller skates. We are forbidden for-bidden the horrible spectacle of feeding feed-ing huma-ns to wild beasts. But surely the Roman circus had nothing more terrible than that collection of freaks in our side show. For the Romans prized beauty and perfection even if their value of human life was cheap. Even New York and Chicago and other large cities, which offer no end of amusements for their citizens, go to the circus and enjoy It Immensely. But in these large plnces part of the glamor and romance of the circus, as most of us know it, is lost. No one goes down to the tracks to see it come in. It Is held Indoors in a large building, and runs, not for one day, but for weeks. And there is no parade. City traffic is too heavy, and the dollars that every tie-up and knot in the swift movement of vehicles ve-hicles loses to business are too precious pre-cious to be sacrificed for a mere circus parade. But once inside the new Madison Square Garden in New York or the Coliseum in Chicago, your city circus goer hns the same good time and he thrills to the same reckless performance. perform-ance. Since the advent of the movies there has been some talk regarding the possibility of the slow dying-out of the circus. It is perhaps true that fewer companies are on the road now than there were twenty years ago, but many of these have been consolidated, consoli-dated, making for bigger, grander and gaudier shows, each the Greatest on Earth. have a circus !" ?s But the Roman youth was cheated fjkti out ot 0Ile tllri11 tne circus he !rjrvi couldn't go down to the tracks early "ifij of a morning and watch the circus 'ftj- detrain. For this Is an event in the lives of little men. From the time vklj the billposter sloshes barns and fences ' lifts jt'ft a with gaudy posters announcing. In letters tall as a man, the great day on which the circus is to arrive, the youth of the favored town await that eventful morning when the mysterious train steams into view, comes to a halt and disgorges the queerest appearing ap-pearing lot of people, paraphernalia and whatnot that the eyes of youngsters young-sters ever were permitted to see. As if by magic, hundreds of hard-boiled hard-boiled roustabouts, working furiously, : and with the precision and dexterity that comes only to those who have learned their parts through countless - experiences, are at their posts, and the task of unpacking a circus has . begun. They work fast The big pnrade Is i scheduled for half-past ten, and by ! that time wagons must be put in , readiness, horses groomed and har- nessed, and everything running with ! maehinelike regularity. And what is a circus if there is no i parade ! A buzz of excitement runs through the town. Business is tem- rivet your attention. Then, all too often, we see an act that by no means deserves this very special heralding. In the animal tent we find the same old dusty elephants, a flock of camels, a zebra or two, perhaps a giraffe with great eyes, and sometimes a hippo. The monkeys still like pea-nuts and the mountain lions are snarly. And if you find a talkative attendant attend-ant you can learn lots of interesting things in the menagerie. For instance, when the weather is very hot, it is the lions and the tigers, who come from hot climates, that suffer from the heat. The polar bears, on tie other hand, natives of the Arctic and used to the cold, don't seem to mind the heat at all. Then there's the side show with its freaks nnd fakirs (which, many oi us are skeptical enough to believe, should be spelled with an "e" in place of the "i"). And who can decide which is the more attractive the offerings of-ferings inside this tent of wonders or the hoakuin and ballyhoo and per- |