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
A great circus uses large quantities of advertising paper--so much, in
fact, that it is difficult to keep track of it. True, the
superintendent of the advertising car gives each man so many "sheets"
in the morning and the man at night hands in a statement which is
supposed to show where and how he has placed the paper. These brigades
are followed by "watchers," or, as the railroad men term them,
"spotters," who look carefully over the ground. But the impossibility
of detecting all crooked work may be readily understood when I say that
from eight to twelve wagons containing bill-posters and paper start out
on country routes in as many different directions, so the "spotter,"
not being ubiquitous, cannot follow every trail. One of my "spotters,"
however, did once ascertain that a party of my men had driven into the
country and dozed comfortably in the shade all day, had not put up any
paper and had not fed the hired horses, although they did not forget to
charge for the "feeds." The horses were thus made to suffer and the men
pocketed the money which should have gone for oats. Of course my
superintendent discharged the entire brigade, although, when the season
is well under way, it is very difficult to obtain skilled bill-posters,
for it is quite a difficult craft and experts are in good demand.
The reader, however, can easily see what a great loss such doings
entail on a show, considering the cost of the paper at the printer's,
the freight or expressage, the cartage, and the money paid the men for
putting up the sheets. The printing bills of a first-class show are
enormous. My lithograph bill alone, the last successful season of my
show, amounted to $40,000, and this was before the days of extensive
lithographing. I believe I ordered the first three-sheet lithograph
ever made, and also the first ten-sheet lithograph. This was considered
a piece of foolishness; but when I ordered a hundred-sheet bill and
first used it in Brooklyn it was considered such a curiosity that show
people visited the City of Churches for the express purpose of looking
at this advertising marvel. How things have changed! The Barnum and one
or two other shows now use nothing but lithographs, and many of their
bills are beautiful works of art, some of them being copies of really
great pictures.
I can remember when one-sheet lithographs cost one dollar each, and for
several years later they could not be bought for less than fifty to
seventy-five cents apiece. They can be had now in large quantities for
about five cents or less the sheet. As shows nowadays frequently use
hundreds of sheets in a day, imagine what would be their cost at the
price paid in the pioneer show period.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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