TRANSFERRING FROM WATER TO RAIL.

The conquest of the Old World by the Barnum & Bailey circus will live forever in the stirring history of tented organizations. It made the enterprise an object of international interest. There is now practically no country in the world that does not know the Barnum & Bailey Show and recognize that it and its ally, the Forepaugh & Sells Brothers Show, enjoy a happy, undisputed monopoly.

As America reaches out for commercial predominance, so the American circus challenged competition abroad, and foreign rivals quivered and shrunk. England found and felt herself laboriously behind hand, and other nations yielded pre-eminence. For five years crowned heads showed gracious appreciation and vied with one another to express generous sentiments of welcome and appreciation to the American envoy, and that period records uniform success and not a single failure. This profound impression made in other lands is one of the proudest achievements of American sagacity, resolution and ambition, and directly stimulating to the pride of all Americans, whose great good fortune it is now that the Barnum & Bailey circus has returned to contribute to the happiness of humanity here.

Few, probably, appreciate the tremendous undertaking involved in this picturesque invasion, and the difficulties met and overcome. All methods had to be adjusted to new surroundings and new demands. The manner and matter of work bore no resemblance to those here. The extent and nature of changes affected all departments of the organization. Every inch of the territory travelled was unfamiliar. Languages and people were strange. Yet the campaign was instituted without prolonged preparation and with no twinges of misgivings, so accustomed was this great circus to demonstrating possibilities and so perfect was it in planning and directing. It can truly be said that it caters for the world.

A volume in itself would be required to tell the story of how the Barnum & Bailey circus, in the stern test of competition, forced all others into insignificance during its travels abroad. Incidents grave and gay, of life, action and adventure, crowd the history of those five years. The then Prince of Wales, now King Edward VII., I recall, after witnessing several performances, sent the personal message: “The circus is justly deserving of the title ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’, for it not only is certainly the greatest amusement enterprise ever organized, but also the most wonderful example of organization and discipline one can hope to see.”

Even more signal an honor was that conferred by Emperor Francis Joseph I., during the visit of the circus to Vienna. Following an afternoon under tents, his delighted imperial majesty sent to Mr. James A. Bailey, managing director, accompanying a letter of thanks for his entertainment, a gold cigar case, relieved on one side by the royal crown and the initials “F. J. I.” Twenty-five scattered brilliants enhanced the intrinsic value of the gift. Later the royal household requested a complete set of circus lithographs for the Emperor’s library.

The transportation of the show from London to Hamburg is noteworthy from the fact that it was the first time railway cars sixty feet long had ever been loaded on board ship without being taken apart. And they were taken from the vessel and deposited on the tracks in Germany just as they were removed from the tracks in London, wheels and all, and were the first English-made cars ever operated in the Kaiser’s domain. The Barnum & Bailey circus was the first tented institution allowed to spread a canvas in Berlin. After a rigid examination of the show in every detail, the officials signed permits with the frank expression that they had no apprehensions of disaster in any form. The city is the headquarters of the German army, and the discipline, precision and business common-sense of the circus civilians so impressed the principal officers that they were in constant attendance. On the evening of departure members of the General Staff witnessed the breaking of the encampment, taking copious notes, while another body put in the night at the scene of embarkation at the railroad yards.

Tributes like these to the enterprise and energy and superior skill of the American circus men covered the almost continuous period of their foreign wanderings. Of difficulties overcome, there was one whose extraordinary character I feel certain would have caused any other than Mr. James A. Bailey, the director of the Barnum & Bailey circus, to have abandoned the project entirely. A few days before the opening of the show in the Olympia in London, the County Council decided that more precautionary fire measures were necessary, and ordered the erection of a giant curtain of iron and asbestos, to cover one entire side of the vast amphitheatre. The required outlay was $90,000, but Mr. Bailey, not a bit dismayed, went at the task with characteristic vigor and without delay, and accomplished it with a celerity which filled the English mind with astonished wonder. Moreover, when it came to hanging the tremendous area and the workmen in the employ of the firm to whom the contract had been given feared to go aloft, he called his own picked body of employees to the scene and they did the job without friction or flinching.

I can truly say that no one is more honored in circus history than Mr. Bailey, the presiding head of this remarkable institution. It would be a grateful duty to the world to rescue from self-imposed oblivion the events connected with his life, but the unusual modesty of the man forbids. While others boast and glorify themselves, the admitted “king of circus men” chooses personal obscurity. All publicity attaching to his movements is strangely distasteful; he wants the world to know and approve only the enterprise to which his life has been devoted and which his sagacious efforts have solely borne to supremacy. No imagination save his was once bold and radical enough to grasp the future, and no other prophet could foretell the rapid and enormous development of the American circus.Only his old-time intimate associates know how visionary were once accounted the broad methods which have won him success, and the rebuffs and hindrances of no common sort which were his experiences. Through them all he worked ceaselessly, patiently, resolutely, with the courage and confidence of personal conviction, resigning personal convenience, ease, social enjoyment and other valued privileges, and the result has marked him as the one dazzling genius of the profession. To his employees he is like a father who sympathizes with his children in their varied circumstances of joy and sorrow. His benevolences are large-hearted but judicious, and his integrity of the rugged, old-fashioned type. He has shed a lustre upon the profession which has won universal recognition and admiration, and little wonder that his return to his native land, his rightful circus heritage, has been hailed with a burst of cordial welcome and enthusiasm.