Experienced circus owners reckon that one-quarter of the attendance comprises children under nine years of age and who pay half-rate, twenty-five cents. Thus it will be seen that some thirteen thousand persons, including those with free tickets, must pass the door each day before a dollar’s profit has been yielded from this source for the management. Our “big top’s” capacity is ten thousand persons. One realizes, after consideration of these facts and figures, how necessary it is that there be few vacant seats at either performance to insure a profit for the day, and how often the net revenue is supplied entirely by side-show, peanuts, popcorn, lemonade, and other small departments. Moreover, when the casual observer convinces himself that the huge tent is full to repletion, he is often badly mistaken. The circus usher must perform his duty with great care and systematic thoroughness, else he will permit the man who has paid for one seat to occupy two or more. * * * * * The circus does not run its season, dissolve, and disperse. In winter the entire establishment is maintained. Only the performers and workmen are dropped, and with the former this is generally a mere suspension of service, for contracts are frequently made for several years. Owners, managers, contracting agents, advertising agents, press agents, treasurer, bookkeepers, and others, find no idle moments. Rolling stock, suffering from the hard effects of a season’s campaign, needs painter and carpenter; new acts and novelties must be secured to keep abreast of the times; the new route must be laid out and considered; and to do this the management must know the population and character of every town; have information of the condition of business, vicissitudes of the year and the prospects for the coming season; know the national, state, and municipal law and the character of licenses, and the price of food for man and beast; keep track of floods, droughts, or disasters to crops or people; be conversant with the periods of ploughing and harvesting; learn what railroads run in and out of town, their grades and condition, the extent, strength, and height of tunnels and bridges and the relative positions of railroad yards and the show lot; and find out the condition of the soil wherever the circus is booked in case of rain, and provide in advance for such a contingency. The circus is a fair-weather show and the management must have a definite knowledge of wet and dry seasons, to avoid encountering, so far as human foresight is possible, unpropitious meteorological conditions.