Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 99, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 August 1901 — A Great Circus Day. [ARTICLE]

A Great Circus Day.

The “Great Wallace Shows,” exhjbited here Tuesday afternoon to the largest crowd that ever attended a circus in Jasper county. The attendance was so great that hundreds could not obtain seats, and had to stand during the performance. Most people, looking at the vast crowd inside the tent would have estimated the number at 5,000 or 6,000 people. A circus man however, said 3,500 would be nearer the right figure. In the evening the attendance was, of course, very much smaller. And while we say it was the largest crowd, we think we can say, take it all around, it was the best circus we ever had. Wallace has been here, before, it is true, but the show has been improved since his former visit. Robinson Brothers have been here, also, and Sells Brothers, too, and were mighty good shows, but Wallace’s in its 1901 form, is better perhaps than any; certainly as good. It is difficult however to compare the relative merits of two or more great circuses, for in their multiplicity of features one will excell in some respects, and another in others. Some of Wallace’s very best features are the Stirk family of bicycle riders and the Nelson family, of acrobats. Their Japs are also excellent in wire walking, equilibrists etc., and the same might also be said of a great many other features. Greatest of all, however, are the hippodrome races. Their horseback riding in the rings is good also, but not very much in quantity. The menagerie connnected with the show is quite extensive, and the animals, what they have, are fat and sleek and happy looking as so many stall-fed oxen. Their most unusual feature in this department is their enormous hippotamus. He is a great lazy brute however, and will never get on his feet except under the stimulus of a quarter in his keepet’s pocket. He had his gape with him, but did not use it very often, evidently fearing that his entire cage and contents, himself included, would fall down his throat, if he opened his cavernous mouth with any frequency. Of course the circus does not give all it advertises. If a big show ever does that, people may know that the millennium is right at hand. „ It is a pity that the Wallace shows should continue to sully their good name, and to detract from the natural pride Indianians take in this Indiana show, by encouraging the fakers and skin games, as they still do. The side-show, that is the usual headquarters of fakes and gamblers is still with them. But they were not permitted to do much business here, us Sheriff Hardy got after them, early in the forenoon, and gave them to understand, in no uncertain terms, that no more skin games and grafts would go. One very disreputable trick, could not however be lawfully suppresed. That is having a second ticket wagon, a little nearer town, which sold tickets at 60 cents, and with a barker who held out to the passing people the idea that they would be able to get their tickets and get in much quicker by buying of him, than of the regular wagon, at 50 cents. That part is a barefaced fraud.