Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 April 1875 — P. T. Barnum's Latest Wonders—A Colossal Exhibition. [ARTICLE]

P. T. Barnum's Latest Wonders —A Colossal Exhibition.

Harper’s Weekly devotes nearly two columns to explaining and extolling the great enterprise* with which P. T. Barnum is making historical his forty years’ career as the most liberal and darimr showman in the world. The statistics which Harper Brothere give us from authentic sources are nearly overwhelming. They make an ordinary head dizzy. Mr. Barnum has always boasted that he gave his patrons double their money’s worth, and his claims ase generally acknowledged ; but this time he seems to have far outstripped himself. Last year he obtained from the Connecticut Legislature a charter for “ The P. T. Barnum’s Universal Exposition Company,” with a capital of a million erf dollars; Mr. Barnum, who is President of the company, and Mr. Coup, his Manager, have 6 pent many months in Europe perfecting their plans. The object of this great company, as they announce, is to elevate amusements, divest them of all objectionable features, and thus render them worthy the patronage of the most moral and refined classes. They say that eventually they will have a score or more of exhibitions (traveling and permanent) in America and Europe, and they intend that their chartered title shall be a guarantee of the merits of whatever they bring before the public. The present season they have but two exhibitions. One is Mr. Barnum’s wellknown “Museum, Menagerie, Circus and Traveling World’s Fair;” the other is simply called “ The Great Roman Hippodrome.” Mr. Barnum seems to have devoted years to perfecting this great enterprise, and nearly one year of bis personal attention was paid to it in Europe. At an expense of several hundred thousand dollars he erected a great.hippodrome building in the heart of New York city, and under an outlay of over $5,000 each day he has run his establishment in New York for nearly a year. This Exposition Company are engaged to ship the entire Hippodrome to Europe next autumn; meanwhile they have undertaken the difficult task of transportingit entire to the principal cities in America. Harper's Weekly says: “The Great Roman Hippodrome will resemble a moving camp. There are 1,200 men, women and children in Mr. Barnum’s service, and the stock includes 750 horses and ponies, besides elephants, camels, English stag and stag-hounds, trained ostriches, lions, bears, tigers and other animals. For the exhibition of the menagerie and the various shows, displays and performances connected with the enterprises, two enormous tents, each 500 feet in length and 300 in width, have been provided, one of which will be kept in advance in order that no time may be lost by delaying in making ready. The question of transportation by rail—a very serious ene —was solved by the construction of 150 cars twice the usual length, built expressly for this purpose. Among them are a number of ‘horse-palace’ cars, constructed with commodious stalls, in which the horses can lie down and rest while on the journey and arrive at the place of exhibition quite fresh for the per. formanee. Besides moving the tents, animals and all other material in these Hippodrome cars, berths will be provided in those devoted to the personnel of the company for nearly all the employes. Besides the great exhibition tents, and stable tents for the horses and other animals. There is also attached to the company a large corps of blacksmiths and carpenters and builders, some of whom precede the show several days, to make ready for the exhibition by preparing the ground, erecting seats, etc. The dressing-room tents alone will cover more ground than an ordinary circus.

“ To move such an enormous establishment without hitch or delay requires the employment of clear-headed, practical men at the head of each department Everything is so arranged as to move with the smoothness and precision of clock-work. At the appointed hour the canvas will go up, the street procession will move, the performance will commence. When all is over, aud the great tent emptied, everything will be packed up by those detailed for the work, and the caravan, without the loss of a minute, will be on the move toward the next place of exhibition. “ The programme of performance will be varied ana attractive. Dbnaldsou will make daily balloon ascensions with a car large enough to contain a company of five or six persons, at a cost of about SSOO a day for this feature alone. Then there will be the ‘ Roman races’ in chariots driven by ‘Amazons;’ the ‘liberty races’ in which forty wild horses are turned loose in the arena, in exact imitation of the famous carnival races of Rome and Naples; ‘ standing races,’ in which the riders stand on bare-back horses; hurdle races for ladies; flat races by English, French and American jockeys; besides camel, elephant and ostrioh and monkey races. Another feature will be the exhibition of Indian life on the plains, in which the actors will be scores of Indians, with their squaws and pappooses. They will put up a genuine Indian encampment, hunt real buffaloes, give war dances, races, foot races against horses, exhibitions of daring horsemanship, lassothrowing. A band of Mexican riders, mounted on famous mustangs, will make a pretended attack on the Indian camp and give a mimic but faithful representation of the wild scenes enacted on the Western frontier. The Euglish stag hunt will be an exact picture of the sport itself, with a company of 150 men and women in full hunting costume, and a large pack of English stag-hounds. There will also be many other interesting and attractive features, the mere mention of which would make a small volume.

“ Mr. Barnum certainly deserves great credit for an enterprise which is calculated to afford a vast amount of innocent,-popular amusement; and although this gigantic venture involves an enormous outlay of money it will presept too many attractions not to be generally sustained.” Amazing as this exhibition seems from the description given by Harper's, we can say, from actual observation, tnat one ? feature is to be introduced into the traveling Roman Hippodrome more interesting and instructive than any other. It is the great procession known as “The Congress ofMonarchs.” The Harper's omitted mentioning this because, probably, they supposed Mr. Barnum would not dare incur the expense of transporting such an enormous affair through the country. But he will do so, and here is a brief description of this dazzling and bewildering exhibition, as given by a New York contemporary: * “Of all the gorgeous pageants the world ever saw the ‘Congress of Nations’ is the greatest, and. how the surpassing genius of even Barnum could 1 produce it is a wonder. The costumes are true to life, aud many of them are genuine, having been procured direct from the nationalities which they represent. The individuals employed to personate the historical characters have the most faithful resemblance to the originals in face and physique. Each nation finds its special portraiture in some kind of triumphal car, brilliantly bedecked with appropriate flags, emblems, colors and intricate devices, and all sorts of characteristics in the way of peculiar uniforms, animals, soldiery, attendants and music. Scores pfglistening gilded chariots illumine the arena with a halo of luster, as it were, and the display of royal splendor is far more imposing and impressive than words can describe, thrilling the auditor with unspeakable amazement and admiration. “ As the n ame of the grand Congress implies, it is a stupendous gathering of the Mouarchs of the universe, bringing in vivid view the living Kings, Queens, Rulers aid Potentates of the Dast nine centuries, culminating in an affecting finale so touching that it must awaken the emotions of a stoic. Her Majesty, the Qneen of England, heads the glittering column, surrounded by her royal court and followed by a long ancestral line, the notability and richly-uniformed “life guardsmen.” Then France, in the person of Napoleon the First and his famous Field Marshals; Ireland, Rome, Russia, Germany, Italy, Turkey, India, Japan, China, and so on, until all the Monarchs and Courts of the entire world pass in review, winding up like a jewel-besprinkled coil around the continuous 'circle. To look upon this beautiful .historical procession in all its grandness and greatness is equivalent to sitting in full view of the courts of all the earth, so truthfully realistic are the bewildering pictures revealed in rapid succession. Such a dazzling half mile of solid gold, jewels, silver, precious stones and tin'

•tel could only be produced after ve&rv preparation and the expenditure of a dozen competencies. Any attempt at imitation on the part of ambitious and unscrupulous showmen for yean to come will result 'ln the most inglorious failure. None other than the ‘ Prince of Showmen’ himself would undertake it, and none other than the great and irrepressible Barnum could achieve so signal a triumph.” This entire exhibition is advertised to exhibit in New England in May, York, etc, in June, Chicago early in July, Ohio, Illinois and Michigan in July and August. It is due to our readers that we inform them that Mr. Barnum announces that certain imposters in Cincinnati have copied his bills, posters, cuts and advertisements, and with a few broken-down circus horses and wagons will precise his exhibition in the West, and by announcing the Great Roman Hippodrome will attempt to make the public believe that it is his unrivaled establishment. He cautions the public against being thus deceived, and reminds them that it would be impossible with any amount of money to organize and equip even a semblance of his establishment without a preparation of several years. The Cincinnati Daily Enquirer Of Feb. 27, 1875,jsays that this pretended “ Hippodrome” is simply the “ wreck Of that stupendous fraud known as the Great Eastern and Great Southern Circus and Menagerie combination, which exploded at Selma, Ala, the 16th of last November, a number of horses having to be sold to pay the expenses of shipping the show to this city, where the proprietors left a number of their employes unpaid and penniless, and vamosed. Who the real proprietors of the business were still remains a matter of considerable mystery, but it is generally believed that Andy Haight, one Gibbons and George Weber and others were large stockholders. The defrauded circus men “and others connected with the concern finally obtained the aid of the law to compel a settlement of their just claims, and the whole matter ended in the show being attached at Hamilton, and in an auction sale of the circus property at Lebanon yesterday afternoon. “ The best of the joke is that De Haven, Webber,. Gibbons and others are about to reorganize a Hippodrome out of the ‘ wreck’ to start out with next summer on another tour. “ The whole show Was rather a poor concern, only a few lions being in good condition, and the menagerie including no really rare or valuable animals.”

Our readers have only to use ordinary caution to discover which is the real and which is the bogus concern, though we see that Mr. Barnum complains that some shows obtain an employe named Barnum, and then adverse “ Barnum’s latest enterprise,” and resort to other devices wherein they use the name “ Barnum” to deceive the public. He 6ays that all exhibitions with which he is connected will give his initials, “P. T,” and also publish his portrait by way of identification. To he forewarned is to be forearmed. “A word to the wise is sufficient.” As Mr. Barnum’s great Hippodrome travels under an expense of nearly 810,000 each day it can exhibit only in large cities. These can be reached by cheap excursion trains. Mr. Barnum says he can easily lose half a million of dollars by this summer’s experiment, and that in any event he shall not bring back his Hippodrome from Europe. It is patronized aud approved by the clergy and religious classes, as well as by school-teachers and all heads of refined families who desire their children to improve their minds under this great system of “ object-teaching.” Beyond aH question this is the most extensive and extraordinary exhibition on the face of the earth, and probably this generation will “ never see its like again.” —Dr. Prideaux states that in fifty battles fought by Caesar he slew 1,122,000 of his enemies. If to this number we add the loss of troops on his own side and the slaughter of women and children on both sides we shall probably have a total of 2,000,000 of human beings sacrificed to the ambition of one man! If we assign an equal number to Alexander and the same to Napoleon, which we probably may do with justice, then to three military butchers we may ascribe the untimely death of 6,000,000 of the human family. —Estimating ice to be worth half a cent a pound, or ten dollars a ton, the ice crop of 2,000,000 tons just harvested on the Hudson, is more valuable by $2,000,000 than either the wheat or the corn crop of the entire State of New York.