The clowns’ band is near the end. In grotesque attire, the “musicians” blow and beat on the top of one of the chariots. The production is what the alliterator of the show calls “a slaughter of symphonies, a murder of melodies, a wrecking of waltzes, a massacre of marches, a strangling of songs, a total of terrific tonal tragedies!” The inevitable hay wagon is in the column, and nimble acrobats toss lightly on its fresh-mown burden. Their costumes are bucolic throughout, but offer no impediment to their agile movements. Country boys look on and marvel. The clown in dilapidated wagon behind tottering horse is not absent. His countryman disguise is so perfect that his identity is not suspected. He narrowly escapes being run down by the big circus wagons; he is always in the way and impeding the smooth progress of the parade; he becomes involved in all sorts of plights, but emerges unscathed. It furnishes great fun for the spectators. Sometimes policemen threaten and oftener take him in custody. Then he tells who he is and the crowd roars again, this time at the bluecoat’s expense. Hilarity reigns wherever is his presence. Above the shrill tones of the fife and the blast of the cornet and the clamor of drums and cymbals, rises the oft-repeated admonition, “Look out for your horses, the elephants are right behind!” A clarion-voiced equestrian rides up and down the line of bespangled magnificence with this warning to those who view the spectacle in wagon or saddle. A quick, keen, trained glance reveals to him the probable effect the “led” animals will have on each equine within eye and scent. He knows, too, what the man who holds the reins is not aware of, that the animal with the hump alarms horses more than his ponderous companion. Often the parade is brought to a standstill while this precautionary person insists that a horse displaying the initial signs of disquiet be removed to a place of safety, or, while with the skill of long practice he assists in subduing a beast whom the distant approach of the procession has already alarmed. Women are his _bête noir_. They have full faith in their horsemanship, they tell him, and, anyway, their horses have been thoroughly trained and broken. Then he is gently but firmly obdurate, accepts with good grace the denunciation to which he is subjected, but sees that the possibility of disaster has been removed before he permits the line to pass. He is a saver of life and limb whose services few but showmen appreciate.