Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 June 1876 — A Child Rider in a Cirens. [ARTICLE]

A Child Rider in a Cirens.

An attendant upon a recent circa* exhibition in Detroit gives, in the Preu, the following account of one portion of the performance: A couple of very brisk little ponies came galloping in and took up my attention. At first it seemed ae if they were riderless, but as they came dashing around the ring I saw on one of them a Tittle child about four years old, tightly clutching the shaggy mane with both hand*. He was a handsome little boy, with fair, curly hair and a bright, winsome face, which was dow deeply marked with lines of fear a* he swept past, clinging to his perilous position. After going around the ring he tried to stand on the pony; twice he failed, and each time » savage snap from the ringmaster’s whip encouraged the littlte fellow to try again. At last he stood erect, and then amid the applause of the crowd, he managed to get a foot on each pony, and, waving one hand, he-hurrahed in answer to a warning whip-snap, and andihis shrill, childish voice was tremulous with terror. At last one foot slipped, and he fell partly down between the ponies, but saved himself by getting an arm over t>he neck of one and tightly grasping the mane of the other, as he hung between them while they galloped more wildly than ever. I expected to see a dozen ring men spring to hie rescue, but no one stirred—only vicious cracks of the whip as amid the breathless silence of the crowd the little boy vaihly tried to regain his place on the pony’s back. Twice around the ring be-went, and then the tiny hands loosened, and the poor lib' tie fellow fell between the ponies. Everybody wondered why he didn’t reach the ground, but it was "no fait.” The child was tied, not quite as- tightly as Mazeppa,, to the ponies; and as they raced around the ring he dangled within a few inchesof the ground, without the luxury of fall! ing and having the agony over. It seemed) a wonder that the life Was not crushed out of him when his fiery little steeds jammed* together as they swung around the circle; At last they were stopped, and the child was taken by the arm and set omthe pony' with an emphasis that spoke plainer than words: “There, stick on next time.” Hurdles were then placed before the horses, and, after a wild canter around the ring, the little boy again fell off and hung in his ropes while the ponies leaped over the barriers, each- time jerking the breath out of the unfortunate little child that hung between them. I have heard of dead criminals being hung in. chain* in time past, and I don’t suppose they made any complaints about it, but to hang a living creature, and that & child of four years, with ropes between two galloping ponies, seems-to me a trifle more barbarous. I would be pleased to see the ropes and the hanging applied, but in a different manner,, to those who force him to do tiiis dangerous work. They also made the child walk a tightrope, and, as might be expected, he slipped and this time fell to the ground, the heavy pole striking him in the face, but ho smiled and said “ Alljright,” kindly prosuaded to.do so by the iron grip of his master on his puny arm, and had to repeat the performance. How many go to a circus in the fond hope that they will see somebody kill himself. This is a very laudable desire, and I have nothing to say against it, for if a man, rather than learn some useful trade, chooses to perform and break his. neck, thus maiming himself for life,, it is nobody’s business but his own; but when a poor little child is forced through such a terrible ordeal it ia time either to stop talking about civilization or to bury the men who risk, their lives to fill, their purses. When they use him so inhumanly before the people, what must be the treatment he gets behind, the scenes, where he is sworn at, whipped and kicked into doing what his child nature must hold in terror.