Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 95, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 August 1898 — The Circus Was Here. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Circus Was Here.

A Big Crowd and A Fair Show. Wallace’s circus exhibited to a large crowd here. Wednesday afternoon, and to a fair sizod crowd in the evening. It was a pretty good show, but the circus part was considerably curtailed, as a result of accidents. The circus tent proper, which was badly used up at Greencastle, the day before by a storm, got its finishing touches here, just as it was partly raised, in a little squall which came up, about two o’clock. This caused the circus tent to be abandoned entirely and the per-formance-was given in the much smaller menagerie tent, which was hastily and imperfectly prepared for the purpose. The animal wagons were arranged in a circle outside, and simply a side canvass placed around them All these changes caused great delay and it was three o’clock before the doors of the animal show were opened and considerably later than that before the circus tent was ready. The animal show is a reasonably good one, including a number each

of elephants, camels, lions, tigers, jaguars, ocelots, panthers or mountain lions, zebras. East Indian buffalos. Also single specimens of ape, hyena, coyote, and bear. The circus was a very satisfactory performance,- although using the small tent cut off all the hippodrome and chariot races, and the most of the swing and trapeze performances. The acrobat feature, as represented by the Nelson family, would be hard to equal. The Stirk family. on old style high wheel bicycles, are also extra fine, and following them was Billy Schaar, as a typical hobo, on an ordinary bicycle. His tricks thereon were truly marvelous. Schaarf, by the way, rode running horses for our townsman, J. G. Reynolds, a few years ago. The horseback performances were ordinarily good, as were also other features which were presented, including the tricks of the numerous clowns, the trained donkey &c. A mean little swindle which caught nearly everybody was perpetrated, by means of a ticket wagon somewhat apart from the grounds, but evidently meant to be taken for the regular wagon, at which tickets were sold at ten cents above the proper price. This was open nearly an hour before the regular ticket wagon, and most people bought their tickets there, thinking it was the regular wagon. It is a mean swindle and a dis. grace to Wallace that he permits it. There were various swindles in the side shows, such as the shell game and others and quite a good man/ were caught by them; most-

ly this time, fresh young men from '[ the country. If any of the real I wise citizens around town tried to - win back the money they lost sit I some of the previous sbows, They | seem to have kept very quiet about ■ it, as so far only one at all prominent town citizen has admitted that he went up against any game at Wallace’s. One of the side show 7 gamblers was arrested, on complaint of a young man from near Kuimau, named Lewark. He gave the gambler a S2O bill to change, and the gambler held on to it. He disgorged when arrested and also handed back some smaller sums to other parties, to the amount of about $36. As to the concert after the circus performances, it is about as hard to find anyone who will admit they stayed to it, as to find anyone else who will own to going against the shell game. The concert is a great fake; naughty and not nice. ■ ■ -

MAP SHOWING ONE WEEK’S PROGRESS OF THE AMERICAN ARMY IN PUERTO RICO.