For the winter months, when the circus could not travel, Barnum and Coup hired the Hippotheatron, on Fourteenth Street, New York, and they used some of their curiosities and performers in this continuous museum, menagerie and circus. Part of the show was also sent during the winter on a tour of the southern states, and in 1872 Barnum accompanied the show on this trip. On December 24, 1872, the Hippotheatron was destroyed by fire, and Barnum found himself in possession of nothing but two elephants and one camel, besides the part of the show which was then exhibiting in New Orleans. He immediately, so he wrote, cabled his agents in Europe to obtain duplicate curiosities and new animals and properties, and he telegraphed his son-in-law: “Tell editors I have cabled European agents to expend half million dollars for extra attractions; will have new and more attractive show than ever early in April. P. T. Barnum.” Coup, meanwhile, had provided for the reorganization of the show, and in 1873 it was able to take the road with a larger collection of performers, curiosities and animals than during its first tour. The Barnum show depended for its patronage upon its size, and in 1872 Coup and Barnum added another ring under their tent. This was the first two-ring circus, a development which was followed by every other large show in the country, and which eventually grew into the famous three-ring circus which has been universally adopted in this country. The three-topped tent circus, with its two separate rings, and later three separate rings, had great advertising advantages over its smaller rivals. The very fact that the spectator was offered more than he could possibly see was such a glamorous inducement for him to spend his money that he usually forgot the obvious disadvantage of not being able to see it all. This large-sized show, inaugurated by Barnum and Coup, has always been deplored by circus performers from an artistic point of view, for they have always seen in its immensity no opportunity for the display of individual merit. Clowns and acrobats have considered that their decline in individual popularity was due to the increase in the magnitude of circus presentation, for it was impossible to do stirring or excruciating things in the air, in animal cages, or on the sawdust when two other groups were occupied in distracting the attention of the audience at the same time. Circus clowns like Grimaldi are no longer popular personally, because the maximum time allowed for an individual performance under the Barnum & Bailey régime, which came a few years later than the Barnum and Coup show, was six minutes. Bailey is said to have imported a famous English clown, who could not possibly shorten his act, he insisted, to less than twenty minutes. Bailey paid the clown’s expenses back to England. But psychologically the three-ring circus proved a great success, and brought huge financial profits. The