How the Circus is Put Up and Taken Down

By Cleveland Moffett. McClure’s, Vol. 5, No. 1 (June), 1895.

Transcribed by Judith Griffin

It is a mountain side, silent and gloomy in the downing day. Around the base a railroad winds, stretching away for miles. Dimly outlined a train passes, followed by a second, and then by a third, at brief intervals. Seen from the height the tree trains look like a gigantic snake moving onward in sections. Combined they are at least a mile in length. They are made up of cars of many colors, laden each with a most curious freight. On long flat cars are wagon-cages, now covered with canvas to protect the red and gold in which they are decorated, and containing all the beasts of the jungle. Inside four huge rolling stables a herd of elephants, each weighing four or five tons, are swinging their trunks, while in other cars three hundred horses, including the purest breeds, are ranged together so closely, head and tail, tail and head, that though one of them should be stricken dead he could not fall to the floor. In long brown cars three hundred workmen are packed in tiers almost as closely as the horses. In long red cars, jugglers, snake-charmers, acrobats, bareback-riders, and trapeze performers are sleeping. In another sleep giants and dwarfs, the man with one head and two bodies, the man with no arms, the woman with bearded face, and the dog-faced boy. In still another, dreaming perhaps of their far-away homes, repose a swarthy band of boomerang-throwers from Africa, and high-caste Hindus and Egyptian dancing-girls, the most heterogeneous company eve gathered under one roof. Should harm come to these winding trains, seven hundred lives would be imperilled. Elephants worth seventy thousand dollars might be destroyed, and horses worth twice as much. Destruction of the entire menagerie would mean the loss of half a million dollars; with no recovery, for there is no insurance, the insurance companies accounting the risk too great.

While the trains are still under way, and before the dawn has yet broken, in a field of ten or twelve acres have gathered some trucks loaded with hay, oats, and straw. Beside them is a wagon piled with wood and another with coal. Two sprinkling-carts are drawn up near by, and a wagon with cans holding forty gallons of milk. Along with the trucks and wagons are gathered also several thousand people. Some of them have town themselves from their beds at this unseasonable hour; many have stayed up all night. They are of all classes. Society people have come from balls and card parties; farmers have journeyed in from a distance, and small boys have swarmed from everywhere.

The mists and shadows of the night begin to break. It is half past three; there is a cry from the crowd, “Here they come!” and presently a lumbering omnibus, drawn by two horses, drives into the field, crowded with brown-faced, strong-armed men. It stops, and twenty men springing to the ground gather about a leader whose face shows quick decision, and who proceeds to strip off his coat for work. It is Jack Hunt, the boss canvas-man, with the advance guard of his workmen. A few years ago Jack was himself a member of the common gang, working for four dollars and a half a week; but ability tells in putting up tents as in other things, and now he holds one of the most important positions in this most perfectly organized of all armies, the modern circus.

Locating the Tents

A quick glance over the ten acres, and Jack Hunt has decided on the location of the main entrance, which, in a general way, is the point of departure for everything else. Having settled where the “big top” will stand, the location of the other eleven tents is determined with mathematical precision, as the heart determines the rest of the body.

“Out of the way, you boys,” says Hunt, tape-measure in hand, as he starts forward to mark the long diameter of the “big top.” Two men trot beside him, their arms filled with iron rods two feet long and pointed at one end. Two others help him with the measurements, holding one end of the tape while he runs out the necessary distances. He locates first the five centre poles of the big tent, and iron bar being driven at each point. Then, in the same way, he marks the circumference of the tent, indicating the points where the two hundred and eight side poles will stand. A little red or blue flag flutters at the top of each iron rod, making the plan of the tent stand out on the sod like a geometrical pattern.

The “big top,” four hundred and forty feet by one hundred and eighty, being thus laid out, Hunt and his men hurry to the site of the menagerie tent, which is connected with the main tent by a neck of canvas. This they mark out in the same way, the iron rods here being topped with white flags. All is done with incredible rapidity, the plan of the two great tents being finished within eight minutes from the start. In other parts of the field are as quickly laid out the dressing-room tent, two horse-tents, the wardrobe tents, the side-show tent, the freaks’ dressing-room, and half a dozen smaller tents for the blacksmith shop, the repair shop, etc. Thus, by four o’clock, Jack Hunt, who never went to college, has disposed of enough angles, circles, diameters, and radii, to drive a professor of mathematics frantic; and he has made no mistakes, there being no provision in the programme of a great circus for mistakes. It is only half an hour since the omnibus drove into the field, but a thousand iron rods have been driven to mark where the tent-stakes are to go, and a thousand little flags of various colors, according to the tent, are fluttering over the ground in curious lines and curves. All is now in readiness for the larger gangs of workmen, who have meantime made their way from the train on foot.

The Circus Kitchen

At five minutes past four a shout from the crowd indicates the approach of the three huge cook-wagons, each weighing twenty tons and drawn by six horses. From the first of them rise three chimneys, out of which black smoke is pouring. This wagon carries the sixteen-foot cooking range, where fires were started the moment the wagon was unloaded from the train. Already, while rolling towards the circus grounds, the ten cooks have been making active preparations for the breakfast which must be served within two hours to seven hundred hungry people.

When the three wagons have drawn up on the site of the still unraised cook-tent, three butchers with heavy cleavers at once being work upon the sides of beef, legs of mutton, and loins of pork (five hundred pounds in all) that must forthwith be changed into steaming steaks, chops, and cutlets. A boiler is set up, and steam pipes are connected from it with the big urn which must furnish two thousand cups of coffee shortly, and with the warming-pans on the tables where the meats are served. While this is doing by one set of men, others are raising the tent, building twelve long tables, and unpacking twenty large green boxes that contain six thousand dishes and countless kitchen utensils.

Meanwhile Jack Hunt is overseeing the unloading of the stake-wagons, the pole-wagons, the canvas-wagons, and the tool-wagons, which have come across the field, drawn some by four, some by six, horses. Now he puts his whistle to his lips and sounds three shrill calls which summon all the “big top” gang to the spot. Eighty-five men respond to the call, fine hearty fellows, with bodies all muscle, and with the special skill for the work before them. They are divided into two groups; about thirty to wield the sledges, and the rest to lay the stakes where they are to be driven, and the side and quarter poles where they are to be raised.

Driving Over a Thousand Stakes in Less Than an Hour

First comes the driving of the stakes, no slight task, since each stake is four or five feet in length, two or three inches thick, and has to be driven three fourths of its length into hard ground. Between two hundred and three hundred blows of the sledge are required to get a stake home. The sledges have handles three feet long and heads that weigh seventeen pounds. They must be swung high into the air, and be brought down with the full force of a pair of strong arms. There are over a thousand of these stakes to be driven, which means two hundred and fifty thousand blows of the sledges. But for their special skill, this work alone would take the men half a day. They will do it easily in forty-five minutes. They being with the “big top” tent, which is marked out four hundred and forty feet in length and one hundred and eighty feet in width. There are three hundred and fifty stakes to be driven here, and four gangs of men, of seven or eight men each, are charged to drive them. The leader of each gang places the stake where the iron rod stood, taps it two or three blows to make it stand alone, and then with a nod signals the gang to begin striking. The seven men stand in a circle around the stake, their sledges ready. Each man swings his sledge through a full circle, the heavy hammers coming down on the iron head of the stake in regular and rapid succession. Each man strikes about one blow a second, so that the stake receives seven blows a second. So skillful are the men that they never miss a blow, never interfere with each other, and never vary from the musical rhythm set by the leader. The blows have a well-marked accent or beat on the third or fourth stroke, so that they seem to be striking in three-time or four-time, and this all over the field; for at the same time other gangs are driving the stakes for the other tents. The effect for the listener is very interesting.

Raising the Centre Pole

The whistle sounds again, summoning a large gang to the menagerie tent, where the pole-riggers have already laid the five centre poles in position for raising. Each pole is equipped with a block and tackle, and has a flagstaff joined to it at the top. Attached to the top are also three long, heavy ropes, called the main guys.

Jack Hunt, standing at the foot of the first pole, with a crowbar in his hand, cries, “All ready on the main guy. Now lift her.”

Immediately twenty men begin to pull on two hundred feet of rope, straining to raise the pole a little from the ground at the lighter end. At the same time twelve pole-riggers are lifting on it will all their might. As it rises they work under it and push, advancing slowly towards the base of the pole as the angle widens. The pole is kept from slipping at the base, under all this pushing and pulling, by the crowbar which Hunt holds against it.

“Pull away – slack her – hold her,” cries Hunt.

The pole having been brought to an exact perpendicular, the main guys are made fast, and it stands firm, fifty feet from base to top. The other four are raised in the same way.

Spreading the Canvas

At the foot of the centre poles now lie six big rolls of canvas. They are the six sections of the roof of the tent. At the word of command forty men lay hold of a roll, and, opening it up quickly, spread out the canvas over the ground a length of one hundred and eighty feet. The other rolls are treated in the same manner.

The ground is now carpeted with canvas, over which the men hurry in small gangs to the foot of each centre pole, closing around it in what seems to be a scrambling mass. Really they are proceeding without confusin, and are making the canvas fast to a heavy bale-ring that encircles the centre pole and is raised or lowered by ropes playing through the pulleys at the top of the pole. Meanwhile other workmen run along the lines where the six sections of canvas join, roping these together in long seams, while still others see that the quarter poles are laid in place under the canvas, for raising presently.

Before closing the seams at the bale-rings, the five gangs of pole-riggers slip themselves through the canvas to the ground beneath, where they stand, invisible, with hands on the tackle ropes, waiting the word to haul away. The word comes, and around the five centre poles the canvas beings to lift slowly, while the pulley-blocks creak under the weight of it. When the bale-rings have risen about eight feet, the order comes to stop hauling, for no human strength could lift the canvas to the tops of the centre poles by the aid of the pulley-blocks alone.

Rearing the Side and Quarter Poles

Distributed around the circumference of the tent lie one hundred poles about ten feet long, one to each of the driven stakes. Leaving the centre poles, the workmen lay hold of these side poles, rear them at the edge of the canvas, and fix them in place by guy ropes fastened to the stakes. While one set of men thus lift the roof canvas in place at its outer edge, another set draw the lengths of side canvas around the tent, each length covering the distance between two of the side poles. With such dexterity is the work done, that almost before one realizes that it has begun the one hundred side poles are all in place, secured each by two guy ropes, and the side canvas has been stretched and made fast around half the circumference of the tent. From the other half the side canvas is left down until the elephants and the animals in cages have been brought in.

The roof canvas is now a huge basin held ten feet above ground around its entire outer edge, and a similar height at the five centre poles, but lying flat on the ground through most of the intervening space. To carry it the rest of the way to its proper place is no easy matter, for the weight of the canvas added to the air pressure on its great expanse is only to be calculated in tons. In wet weather the weight is enormously increased. This task is accomplished by the aid of twenty-eight “quarter poles,” each thirty-five feet in length, and by universal custom painted red. On either side of the tent fourteen of these heavy poles lie beneath the canvas at right angles to the circumference. At a signal from Hunt, fifteen men place themselves in line at the foot of a pole on one side and fifteen at the foot of the corresponding pole on the other side. In either gand the men lay hold of a long rope having an iron ring at one end.

“Go ahead with it, boys,” comes the order; and immediately the first man at the rope fastens the ring over a hook in the base of the quarter pole, the pole itself meanwhile having been lifted so that its upper end fits into a socket in the canvas; and then all hands pull. Under the pulling the pole travels toward an upright position and carries the canvas upward. The pulling, which in the menagerie tent is done by the fifteen men, in the “big top” is done by two horses.

The quarter poles in place, three men at the blocks and tackles easily lift the canvas to its full height on the centre poles, and the tent stands complete, covering an area bo three hundred and sixty, the largest menagerie tent in the world. All this has been done within three-quarters of an hour from the time the stake-wagon reached the field.

Now the work proceeds on the smaller tents, it being the rule of the circus that all the stakes for the twelve tents that compose this magic city shall be driven, and the menagerie tent, the cook-tent, and the two horse-tents completely erected, before the men go to breakfast, which is served sharply at six o’clock. This gives them usually two hours in which to accomplish what could not be done as well in a week by an equal number of men not educated to the work.

A Great Encampment

By the time the menagerie tent is erected, the field has taken on the appearance of a military encampment. Stake-wagons, pole-wagons, canvas-wagons, each drawn by six horses, have ranged themselves in their proper places. The baggage-wagons and the property-wagons have stopped near the dressing-rooms; the wagons carrying the wild beasts’ cages are drawn up near the menagerie tent. The horses, both those for humble draught and those for brillianter service in the ring, have been ranged along in lines near their respective tents. The band-wagons and the chariots, the calliope, the chimes, the oil-tank, the sprinklers, the ticket-wagon, the side-show wagon, the reserved-seat wagon, the stable-wagon, and a quantity of other machines and vehicles have arrived. By this time also four or five hundred circus people have presented themselves on the grounds. Not many minutes after the arrival of Jack Hunt, Superintendent Frank Hyatt drove upon the grounds in a buggy, with the boss carpenter and the boss harness-maker. A little later Mr. Bailey himself, the millionaire proprietor of the show, drove rapidly across the field in a sulky drawn by his favorite black horse, which is always waiting beside his private car at daybreak. No man connected with the circus works harder than he. Every day, at both performances, he sits at the main entrance, personally giving out reserved-seat tickets and seeing that no child over nine years old gets in for less than the stipulated fifty cents. Rarely is he absent. During the whole circus season he sleeps on a moving train, and takes his meals with this employees in the cook-tent, where he fares neither better nor worse than they. Every morning at daybreak he is on his feet and off for the grounds, rain or shine, where he personally supervises every detail of the operations, and he does not leave at night until satisfied that everything is as it should be.

Presently a cry from the crowd and a rush of small boys announce the arrival of the elephants, which come chained together in pairs, with a keeper for each.

As soon as the menagerie tent is ready, the cages are drawn inside and set in a close circle. There is a place for each, and no variation occurs from day to day in the way they are placed. All are heavy, some of them weighing five or six tons, and as they stand close together, end to end, it is impossible to use horses in placing them; and as many as twenty men would perform the task with difficulty. An easy method has been found by setting the big elephant “Babe” to push the wagons into place. Three men with “Babe’s” assistance accomplish the whole business in half an hour, and “Babe” seems to greatly enjoy her part of it, using for the work the upper part of her trunk.

Thus by six o’clock the crowd of people gathered on what was but now a bare field have witnessed a most marvelous transformation. They have been well repaid for their unusually early rising. They have had a rare illustration of what can be accomplished by minute and perfect organization. The workmen, their faces glowing under the strong rush of blood, their bodies steaming from their exertions, respond eagerly when the whistle sounds over the grounds and tells them that breakfast is ready. Never were men more ready to eat than they, and nowhere will one find lustier appetites than among the laborers employed by a circus. By this time everything is ready in the cook-tent, which, but for its floor of sod and its seats of painted boards, presents as orderly an appearance as any hotel. Breakfast finished, the work of erection continues to completion with the same precision and swiftness with which it began.

Undoing the Mighty Work of the Morning

It is eight o’clock at night; the curious crowd has left the menagerie tent, and passed into the “big top” for the evening’s performance. Hardly is the last straggler gone when, at the word, workmen let down and bar the shutters of the cages and draw on the canvas covers. Thanks to this careful covering, the paint and gilding show almost as bright and fresh at the end of the season as at the opening.

In placing the cages care has been taken to turn the front wheels toward the side canvas. Now the wagon poles are put in place, and all is ready for the horses.

First, however, the double line of Orientals, with their counters of photographs and curiosities, must be removed, and all along the line the dark-haried men and women are packing their stores in trunks and boxes. Workmen meanwhile are lowering the chandeliers that blaze with lines of naphtha jets. Finally all but one set of burners are out, and the tent, but now so gay, takes on an air of gloom, and emptiness. Down at the farther end the elephants, huddled together with their keepers, sway their huge bulks back and forth, waiting for the moment to start on their march. Other workmen begin to remove the quarter poles, an easy task in comparison with that of putting them in place, two men undoing now what it took fifteen to do in the morning. Deprived of this support, the canvas sags down, sustained only by the centre and side poles.

At a quarter past eight a blast of music from the “big top” calls for the “ethnological procession,” in which all the Orientals take part. Until this is over the final work of removing the menagerie tent cannot be accomplished. But at half-past eight, when the Orientals come scampering back, delighted to be free from a long confinement, the grooms are summoned by Tom Lynch, the boss horseman, to bring up the teams. Quickly flinging on a high-piled turban, a gayly colored shawl, or a silken sash, the Arabs, East Indians, Africans, and what not, hurry away, laughing and chattering. Their boxes and trunks, strewn about the centre of the tent, are immediately carried out and stowed in the baggage-wagon, waiting in readiness.

Now the tent is almost empty, and the few stragglers had best take heed, for Tom Lynch’s horses are coming on like a charge of cavalry. From the side of the horse-tents the teams dash in – twenty-four four-horse teams, ten six-horse teams, four eight-horse teams, and one two-horse team. The driver of each team bestrides one of the leaders, and as the one hundred and ninety horses come thundering down the line of wagons, with harness clanking, the effect is magnificent, though to a timid person perhaps a little terrifying. Each driver knows exactly which wagon his is to draw, and the horses themselves know their places; hence there is no confusion, no delay. Within eight minutes from the time when Tom Lynch sounded his call, the last wagon has been drawn away, and the menagerie tent stands empty.

Taking Down the Canvas

At a word the side walls of the tent are drawn, and the night air blows in. A man stationed at every alternate side pole has quickly loosened his length of the side canvas and folded it up for the canvas wagon. Scarcely are the side walls gone when the last chandelier drops down the centre pole, and the whole place is in darkness. But canvasman known their work so well that they could do it with their eyes closed. Five of them stand at the foot of each centre pole with hands on the pully ropes, ready for the word from Jack Hunt, who stands outside the tent, overseeing everything.

“Have you been around, ‘Big White-head’?”

This is addressed to a man whose important duty it is to inspect the guy ropes, upon which especially depends the safety of the crowd.

“All right, sir,” answers a hearty voice from the darkness.

“How is the back pole?”

“All right, sir,” says “Big White-hear” again.

“How is the second pole?”

“All right, sir.”

The like question is put, the like answer given, for all the five poles; for it is of the utmost importance to make sure that they are held securely in place by the fifteen main guys before allowing the canvas to fall. While the canvas is up, the centre poles will be kept in place by the canvas itself, supported by the side poles and side guys. But once these are removed, all depends upon the main guys, three of which must bear the entire strain of each centre pole. It has happened that by a wanton or careless act some of these guys have been cut and serious accidents have resulted.

Satisfied that all is as it should be with the main guys, Hunt cries, “Let her go.”

Immediately the five bale-rings slide down the poles, while forty thousand square feet of canvas settles slowly to the ground, buoyed up by the air beneath, and swelling along through its length and breadth in great curves and billows, especially where a strong wind catches it. Springing into the air the pole-riggers seize the bale-rings as they come down, and swiftly unlash the canvas, working from below, while the men at the stakes on either side throw themselves upon the mountain of collapsing canvas, climbing up its swaying sides, monkey-like, their weight helping to squeeze out the air from beneath and bringing the struggling monster to the ground. They climb along the seams, working inward, and undoing, as they go, the ropes that lace together the sections. This done, some drag away the blocks and tackle; others roll up the canvas. In the twinkling of an eye there remain standing only the five bare centre poles. Meanwhile, of this work of swift despoilment going on just beside them, the nine thousand people in the “big top” are entirely unconscious.

“Get down to the back pole,” next commands Hunt, and instantly the whole gang of pole-riggers range themselves, with arms upraised, on the line along which the pole is to fall.

“All ready – down she goes,” and at the word Hunt cautiously loosens the guy, slackening the coil from one stake to another of the three about which it is bound in such fashion that single-handed he is able to regulate the descent of the pole. It wavers from the perpendicular, and, sinking slowly, is caught without harm by the forty arms stretched out to receive it.

“Get down to the second pole,” comes the order again, and here the same thing is repeated, and so on with the other three. Then all are lifted upon the pole-wagon, drawn up near by, with six horses hitched to it, ready to start for the train.

It now remains to load the six rolls of canvas into the canvas-van, also waiting, and this again is no easy matter. The strength of twenty men is required to lift one of the rolls into the van, and to lighten the task a little a lifting-frame has been devised. It consists of two long spars placed at right angles to two others, and jointed at the points of intersection. This makes a rack large enough to accommodate one of the rolls of canvas, with eight projecting handles. Two men are placed at each one of the handles and stand ready to lift.

“Pick her up; roll her in,” comes the order, and immediately the sixteen men, straining under their burden, advance tot he van. The roll is pushed inside and stowed away at the farther end, the other rolls following. The lashings are made fast, the driver climbs to his high seat, the horses, knowing their duty, start at a word, and in seventeen minutes from the time the canvas fell the space occupied by the menagerie tent is once more a bare field.

It is exactly thirty-one minutes since the work of dismantlement began.

Loading the Trains

Man’s intelligence has devised nothing more compact, more orderly, more admirably adapted to its purpose, than the train of a great modern circus. It is a kingdom on wheels, a city that folds itself up like an umbrella. Quietly and swiftly every night it does the work of Aladdin’s lamp, picking up in its magician’s arms theatre, hotel, schoolroom, barracks, home, whisking them all miles away, and setting them down before sunrise in a new place, and this with such accurate care for the smallest detail that there seems to have been no change at all. No army knows such severe discipline as the troop of the circus train, for its seven hundred soldiers go into battle every morning as a matter of course, and make forced marches every night. Every twenty-four hours it solves a military problem that would have staggered Napoleon himself. A few years ago, when Barnum and Bailey’s Circus was at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, a number of United States army officers were detailed to study its methods of transportation, with a view of adopting them in the artillery service. They spent a week with the circus, watching the loading and unloading of the train, and in their official report they stated that they could not too strongly recommend the introduction into the United States army of many methods and devices which they found brought there to perfection. Once, in Boston, when the State militia were trying vainly to unload six cars of cannon, an appeal was made to Mr. Bailey. Within an hour Byron Rose, the manager of transportation for the Barnum and Bailey show, with a gang of twenty-one men, had accomplished the work. The unloading of cannon was a comparatively simple matter to men whose daily business it was to juggle cages weighing six tons each, with a rhinoceros or a hippopotamus inside.

The first wagons from the menagerie tent usually reach the train at about nine o’clock, but the work of loading has already begun. Byron Rose, a blonde giant with slightly stooping shoulders, has been busy with his men for half an hour, running up the heavy inclined plane upon the flat cars, the cook-wagons, the band-wagons, the calliope, the chimes, and the five pony-chariots. This inclined plane consists of two runs, built of timbers thirty-five feet long, four inches thick, and sixteen inches wide, with four-inch guards on either side, to keep the wheels from slipping off. The wagons are loaded on the train in the order observed in leaving the ground, which is always the same. The eight flat cars at the head of the train are built so that the wagons roll easily along the whole length, passing from one car to the next without jolting or delay. The first to be loaded is the heavy cook-wagon – the one that is hurried away to the grounds every morning, with chimneys smoking like a fire engine. As soon as the railroad is reached, the six horses that drew it are unhitched and driven back bor another load, while the railroad gang, trained to the work, quickly push the wagon up the easy runs, and then roll it down the whole length of the train, so that it stands at the head, on the farthest car, where the unloading will begin next morning. Thus the first wagon loaded at night is the first unloaded in the morning, and so on with all the others, an invariable order being maintained.

This nightly loading of the circus train, under the glare of electric lights and moving lanterns, furnishes a strange picture, scarcely less interesting to the onlooking crowds than the erection of the tents in the morning. Every moment another wagon comes lumbering up, drawn by four, six, or eight horses, which, trained to their work, bring the wagon to the very foot of the runs, and then leave it to the men, trotting away to the grounds, with a great clanking of chains, for the last haul of the day. As the men seize the heavy wagons and hurry them into their places far down the train, their strength seems prodigious, but it is really skill and the knowledge of how and when to exert themselves.

The Man in Command

In the centre of the busy groups is Byron Rose, watching everything, giving orders rapidly, tersely, with the quick decision of a man who has for twenty years past been working twenty hours a day, and who delights in emergencies, for the mere pleasure of overcoming them. His eyes see everything in a moment: the mistake of a driver in turning his horses too sharply; the danger of collision between two wagons; the need of more men to push on one side of the runs; the arrival of the elephants, which must be driven half a mile down the tracks, where their huge stable-cars are waiting; the fact that the wagons are coming too fast or too slow for his force of men; the danger of delay from a passing train that has just been flagged; the advisability of shunting ahead Section I, on which his men are now working, and drawing down Section 3, on which the menagerie wagons must be loaded. These and a hundred other things are constantly in his mind, and he shouts out his orders like a general, upbraiding a man here for some mistake, despatching men up and down the long line of cars with instructions, stimulating each man to his fullest exertion, and hurrying on the operation of loading as if a minute lost were a disaster, as it is, for the first section of the train must be ready to pull out at fifteen minutes after midnight, with three hundred workmen packed away in tiers in the three brown sleepers, with two hundred horses ranged along in seven stock cars, with all the canvas of the twelve tents, and all the poles and stakes, and all the apparatus and utensils of the cook-tent securely stowed away. Then there are two other sections, equally long, both of which must be loaded and in motion by one o’clock in the morning.

The second section contains eleven flat cars and six top cars, and carries all the ponies and ring horses, at least a hundred in number, and some of them animals of great value; all the seats and supports for the great circus tent, all the stringers, and the wardrobe-wagon. The third section has nine flat cars for the cages, a trunk car, four elephant cars, and four sleepers, including the proprietor’s private car and the cars for the performers, the Congress of Nations, and the side-show “freaks.” This section carries two hundred people, while some five hundred more, including forty-five grooms, twenty-four animal men, six elephant men, thirty-two ring-stock men, twenty-eight wardrobe men, sixty-five cook-house men, eighty-five canvasmen, eighteen property men, are carried in the first two trains; some in the animal cars, watching over their charges, others tiered up in narrow bunks, some sleeping in a narrow space above the elephants and camels, some in the baggage-car.

By one o’clock the last one of at least a hundred wagons, cages, a chariot has found its place, and the three sections are under way, and a circus day’s work is finished.

Now Commander Byron Rose may turn in for his “night’s” sleep. Let us hope it will be at least sound; for in three hours he must be up and unloading his trains again. And this is only part of his work. When not busy with the trains, Mr. Rose is on the circus grounds, taking tickets at the door, or assisting in some other of the countless tasks there. Thus, from three o’clock in the morning until midnight, he is lucky if he gets one hour to himself for a nap. And this is the life he has led for twenty years. But he does not seem to regard it as a hardship. For one thing, he is accustomed to it, and he sees everyone about him leading a life of the same sort, not excepting Mr. Bailey himself. It is pleasant to know that it has rewarded Mr. Rose with a fortune; not, though, because he is paid more than men in other walks of life who do scarcely half as much work, but because his time has been so absolutely absorbed in the circus that he has literally never had time to spend the money he has earned. Someday he will withdraw from the show business, and take the rest which he has certainly earned. When that day comes, it will be interesting to know what he does with his time and money.

 

 

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