Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 166, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 July 1911 — Ching to See the Elephants. [ARTICLE]

Ching to See the Elephants.

. II !■■■ UMI iwmi ♦ Thia city will be well represented in Lafayette on Thursday. July 27th, circus day, Indications are that the town will turn out by the thousands attracted by the wonderful new circus which the Barnum A Bailey people are putting forth this season. The show has an entire new equipment, Costing the management $3,200,000. One third of this was spent on the parade which is reported as the most elaborate street spectacle ever devised. It is three miles in length. The great menagerie of this circus is* creating nothing short of a sensation in towns It visits. It contains the most remarkable collection of rare beasts of Any zoological display in the world, and many specimens which are not duplicated in any other zoo, in America or Europe. The chief attrac tion here is a year old giraffe, the only one ever born in this country. In fact it is the only giraffe, not full grown, ever seen outside the depths of the African jungle. Matured giraffes are scarce enough but this youngster 4s worth its weight in gold. The performance in the main tent is presented by 400 of the world’s greatest artists, gathered from no less than thirty-two nations. The acts they are offering are novel and not at all like the acts that have been seen in America in the pasL Fifty clowns furnish the comedy and in this respect the show is the laughing success of the age. And there are thrills without number from the start to the finish. The performance of Charles the First, a chimpanzee bicycle rider and roller skater, is a most sensational surprise. The specialties of John Ducander’s bell-ringing horses, Winston’s riding seals, a brass band of elephants the Konyot family of German riders, the Fonelli family of Italian acrobats, the Les Deko family of French equilibrists and the Selgrist-Silbon family of aerialists are of the first European rank. Barnum & Bailey carry 1,286 people 700 horses, 30 camels, 1,000 other wild animals, dynamo plants, barber shops, tailoring establishments, bath parlors, laundries, blacksmith shops, harness shops, carpenter shops, dentists, doctors, a lawyer and a private police force. The many tents cover fourteen aqres of ground.