One of the most popular public exhibitions is the circus, a sort of travelling Astley's theatre, which belongs to a company in New York. This show visits all the large towns, once during the summer season. The performances consists of feats of horsemanship, gymnastics, dancing on the tight and slack rope, and wonderful feats of agility and strength; and to those who have taste and nerve enough to admire such sights, it possesses great attractions. The company is a large one, often exceeding forty persons; it is provided with good performers, and an excellent brass band. The arrival of the circus is commonly announced several weeks before it makes its actual entree, in the public papers; and large handbills are posted up in the taverns, containing coarse woodcuts of the most exciting scenes in the performance. These ugly pictures draw round them crowds of little boys, who know the whole of the programme by heart, long before the caravans containing the tents and scenery arrive. Hundreds of these little chaps are up before day-break on the expected morning of the show, and walk out to Shannonville, a distance of nine miles, to meet it. However the farmers may grumble over bad times and low prices, the circus never lacks its quantum of visitors; and there are plenty of half-dollars to be had to pay for tickets for themselves and their families. The Indians are particularly fond of this exhibition, and the town is always full of them the day the circus comes in. A large tent is pitched on the open space between the Scotch church and the old hospital, big enough to contain at least a thousand people, besides a wide area for the performance and the pit. An amphitheatre of seats rise tier above tier, to within a few feet of the eaves of the tent, for the accommodation of the spectators; and the whole space is lighted by a large chandelier, composed of tin holders, filled with very bad, greasy, tallow candles, that in the close crowded place emit a very disagreeable odour. The show of horses and feats of horsemanship are always well worth seeing, but the rest grows very tiresome on frequent repetition. Persons must be very fond of this sort of thing who can twice visit the circus, as year after year the clown repeats the same stale jests, and shows up the same style of performers. The last time I went, in order to please my youngest son, I was more amused by the antics of a man who carried about bull's-eyes and lemonade, than by any of the actors. Whenever he offered his tray of sweets to the ladies, it was with such an affectedly graceful bend; and throwing into his voice the utmost persuasion, he contrived to glance down on the bulls'-eyes with half an eye, and to gaze up at the ladies he addressed with all that remained of the powers of vision, exclaiming, with his hand on his heart,--"How sweet they a-r-e!" combining a recommendation of his bulls'-eyes with a compliment to the fair sex.