The railroad contractor is the first man out. He is familiar to the finest details with every railroad in the country--its mileage, connections, yard facilities, bridges and tunnels. He plans, besides arranging for the transportation of the circus trains, the special excursions which will converge upon the town on the specified day of exhibition. The general contracting agent follows. He makes contracts for feed, lot, accommodations for advance men, livery teams, and billboards. The contracts of these two men involve many thousands of dollars every week and must pass the rigid scrutiny of the experienced general agent. No detail of the business is unfamiliar to him. Car No. 1 is professionally known as the “skirmishing car.” It is most frequently called into service to fight opposition. As soon as a railway contractor of a rival circus puts in an appearance on the route the general manager is promptly notified. There is at once a formidable concentration of forces at the threatened point. No stone is left unturned or chance overlooked to gain an advantage; and the circus man is resourceful of schemes and plots. Billboards, barns, fences, hedges, trees, windows, and all other available space is bought up with apparently reckless expenditures. Banners, printed on muslin, are swung from walls and awnings. Sometimes more money than will be realized on show day is spent in this fight for publicity, but the circus regrets not a cent of it if the opposition has been taught a lesson and will not venture again to cross the path. Attached to a passenger train and about four weeks ahead of the show, comes car No. 2. The general contracting press agent is aboard with his advertising cuts and prepared advertising matter, or keeping pace with it on the route. Sometimes there is a steam calliope, which produces marvellous sonorific effects at sundown, to the dismay of all who live in the immediate neighborhood, but calling obtrusive attention to the approach of the circus. The force of men bills and lithographs for miles around. Each team has a native driver who knows every road and every inhospitable bulldog. Permission is always secured from the owner or lessee of the spot selected for decoration, for without his consent, the astute showman knows, a poster becomes soon a thing of shreds and tatters. In return for the privilege an order is given on the circus for tickets, which is promptly honored if the agreement has been honestly kept.