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Show A SHARP DODGE. How Adam Forepaugh, the Circns Mn( Once Avoided an Attachment. "The circus is subject to a system of blackmail, plunder and robbery en route that is unheard of in any other, business," said an old-time circus man to a Pittsburgh Dispatch reporter. "It requires the most diplomatic management, manage-ment, and after all the company must submit to all sorts of extortion to escape es-cape attachments. These are levied upon the ticket wagon just before the evening performance, or upon a pole wagon as the tents are being pullea down. As the delay of a trial, or even a hearing, would cost thousands of dollars, dol-lars, there is no other way than to submit. sub-mit. This sort of robbery occurs in almost al-most every town where a circus goes, The company may think it is getting off all right, when suddenly some accident, acci-dent, some chance iujury to property, or something of that kind, affords an excuse for a levy. When I was w ith Forepaugh I soon found that the attachment at-tachment racket was dreaded and cursed more by the veteran showman than any other evil. "One time we were showing at Syracuse. Syra-cuse. A drunken countryman had been wandering around and fooling with the animals. He finally ap. proached Tip as the elephants were lined up to leave, pulled a flask of whisky from his pocket and tried to pour it in Tip's trunk. Tip resented this invitation to drink, and in about five seconds was wiping up the ground with his tormentor. But for Dan Ta.y-ior Ta.y-ior and others the man would have been killed. ' Old man Forepaugh took it all in. He knew that the show would be detained de-tained and probably miss the next date if we didn't get off, so he told Dan to throw the man in a wagon and bring him along with the show. We didn't know whether he was dead or alive until un-til our doctor called it a case of drunk. But nest morning, when the man had sobered up, he had no more idea where he was or how he came there than the man. in the moon, rovopr.ng'.i sent f.jr hiui and told liim in hi -5 choice vocabulary vocabu-lary of adjectives that he was a nice man to hire out to the show and then o-et drunk and fisfht with the elephants the first night. 'You are discharged, sir! You are discharged!' the old man thundered, and the fellow snpfk1'! away, utterly eolhipoJ." - |