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. CHAPTER XVI THE OLD-FASHIONED CIRCUS “The size of the tent was rather staggering at first, as the greatest length of the oval is nearly two hundred feet, and standing at one end it is impossible to distinguish with the naked eye the features of those on the crowded seats at the other end.” I quote the foregoing paragraph, taken from a newspaper of 1877, as illustrating by comparison the physical magnitude of the circus of to-day. Our “big tent” could stow away in its capacious depths half a dozen of the canvas arenas of twenty-five years ago, and our “menagerie top” covers more area. The scanty side-show cloth, an insignificant detail of the encampment, is not much smaller.