Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 August 1891 — A SHARP DODGE. [ARTICLE]

A SHARP DODGE.

How Adam Forepaugh, the Circus Man, Once Avoided an Attachment. “The circus is subject to a system of blackmail, plunder, and robbery en route that is unheard of iu any other business,” said an old-time circus man to a Pittsburg Dispatch reporter. “It requires the most. diplomatic manage- 1 ment, and after all the oompany must submit to all sorts of extortion to es-! cape attachments. These are levied Upon the ticket-wagon just before the performance, or upon a pole-wagon as the tents are being pulled down. As the del* / in *t rial, or even a hearing,' woul I cost thu isands of dollars, there is no <-;h -r wity than to submit. This sort of jobbery occurs in almost every town where a circus goes. The company may think it is getting off all right, when suddenly some accident, some chance injury to property, or something of that kind, affords an excuse for a levy. When I was with Forepaugh I soon found that the attachment racket was dreaded and cursed more by the veteran showman than any other evil. “One time we were showing at Syracuse. A drunken countryman had been wandering about snd fooling with the animals. He finally approached 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 iu about five seconds was wiping ( up the ground with his tormentor. But for Dan Taylor and others the man would have been killed.

“Old man Forepaugh took it all in. He knew that the show would be detained 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 jhim along with the show. We didn’t know whether he was dead or alive until our doctor declared it a case of |drunk. But next morning, when tho 'man had sobered up, he had no more idea where he was or how he came jthere than the man in the moon. Forejpaugh sent for him and told him in his choice vocabulary of adjectives that he 'was a nice map to hire out to the show and then get drunk and fight with the elephants the first night. ‘You are discharged, sir! You are discharged,’ the (Id man thundered, and the fellow sneaked away, utterly collapsed.”