The next baby elephant came to life at the winter quarters of Barnum’s circus at Bridgeport, Conn., at eight o’clock on the night of February 2, 1882. It was another female, and the mother was Queen, a fifteen-year-old animal. The event was expected, and at six o’clock in the evening indications of its coming were noticed. Queen was carefully chained. After fifteen minutes of laboring the baby was born. Mr. Barnum and others who were summoned did not arrive in time. The baby weighed forty-five pounds, or eighty-one less than Columbia. It was two feet six inches high and three feet long, exclusive of the trunk which was seven inches. It was perfect in form and quite strong. Its color was bluish, and it was covered with shaggy black hair an inch long. An hour after its birth it was sucking. Mr. Barnum offered fifty-two thousand dollars for an insurance on the life of the baby for fifty-two weeks. He was jubilant and said three hundred thousand dollars would be no temptation to sell her. The sire of the baby was Chief. A woman mastering the leviathans of the animal kingdom was one of the wonders of a circus in 1887. She was Mrs. William Newman, wife of “Elephant Bill,” who had grown up with the circus. She was a matronly looking person, quite stout and pleasant-mannered, devoid withal of the masculine traits that her occupation might seem to require. At her command the elephants, eight in number, marched, wheeled, countermarched, halted promptly and “grounded arms” by lying on their sides. Then, like schoolboys, delighted at a release from what they deemed duty, the huge beasts broke ranks and assumed different postures and occupations about the ring. One of them stood on his head, another turned a grind-stone with his trunk, a third walked on a revolving barrel, and several others respectively engaged, to their own apparent amusement, in dancing on a pedestal, ringing a bell and “clapping hands.” Mrs. Newman gave few public exhibitions, and there has never since been a successful woman elephant trainer. For some reason, they fail in this branch of circus work, whereas in other departments they are fully the equals of the other sex. CHAPTER XIV THE GENERAL MANAGER The brisk and bustling person who predominates in the stir and activity, hurry and excitement at the main entrance, is the general manager. Nothing seems to escape his watchful eve and alert ear. He answers questions innumerable and all-embracing, settles all disputes as to admission, conveys advice, makes suggestions, gives orders, sends lieutenants all over the lot with instructions, sees to it that the crowd gets in safely but without delay, watches ticket-seller and ticket-taker, and is in general active charge of the “door.”