Sawdust & Spangles: Stories & Secrets of the CircusCoup, W. C. (William Cameron)
History
Sawdust & Spangles: Stories & Secrets of the Circus
Coup, W. C. (William Cameron)
Circus
The man, with his interpreter, was then taken by train to Boston, from
which city they, in due time, wired the museum proprietor of their
arrival. That telegram was answered by another telling them to take the
first Fall River boat for New York City. The press was then notified,
and the representatives of five New York papers were actually sent to
the pier the following morning to interview the distinguished stranger
from Dahomey. The man had been well schooled, and pretending not to
know a word of the English language, could not, of course, converse
with the reporters. But his interpreter managed to fill them up very
comfortably. At all events, long and interesting accounts of the
"snuff-colored giant from Dahomey" appeared in most of the dailies, and
for several weeks this Dahomey was the stellar attraction at that
particular dime museum. The advent of summer and its consequent circus
season closing the city museums, the Dahomey "joined out" with a side
show in which, for successive seasons, he posed as a Dahomey giant, a
Maori from New Zealand, an Australian aborigine and a Kaffir. This
man's success was the initiative for a score of other negroes, who
posed as representatives of any foreign races the side-show proprietor
wished to exhibit.
MISSING LINKS AND DANCING TURKEYS
Krao, the "missing link," as she was called, was simply a hairy child,
and almost exactly like Annie Jones, who was exhibited by Barnum as the
"Esau Child." A great card for museums at one time was the "human-faced
chicken." The first one placed on exhibition was purchased in good
faith by an acquaintance of mine, and proved a good attraction. A
visiting farmer, however, declared that it was nothing but an ordinary
chicken which had had its bill frozen off, and so it proved.
Dancing turkeys were then introduced and caused great amusement. The
awkward birds would walk onto their exhibition stage and go through a
decidedly grotesque dance, their mode of lifting their feet being
highly laughable. The truth was that the stage on which they danced was
a piece of sheet-iron covered with a cloth. The iron was heated to an
uncomfortable degree by gas jets underneath. What the public accepted
as dancing was really the efforts made by the birds to prevent their
feet from being burned.
THE SALARIES PAID TO FREAKS
The spread of the dime museum craze created a great demand for freaks
and a consequent rise in their salaries. I know I am violating no
confidence when I say that at various times the following freaks have
drawn weekly the sums set opposite their names:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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