The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb - Melanie Benjamin [144]
[ SEVENTEEN ]
Ladies and Gentlemen, in the Center Ring …
AFTER THE SECOND AMERICAN MUSEUM BURNED DOWN IN 1868, Mr. Barnum effectively retired from the show business, aside from his partnership in our around-the-world tour and the occasional discovery, such as Admiral Dot. He claimed he chose to concentrate on traveling, politics, and philanthropy. But in 1871 he bought a small circus; then he bought another—and then another. And soon the whole thing had exploded into what he called “P. T. Barnum’s Grand Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan & Hippodrome.” Now, instead of having the public come to him, Mr. Barnum was back to his roots, when he had first traveled the New England countryside with Joice Heth forty years ago. He was bringing the world of P. T. Barnum to the public.
But true to form, he reinvented what was an already established tradition. He was the first to move his circus by railroad, on his own train—an endless stream of cars all emblazoned on the side with his name, just like the old American Museum. While other circuses had to rely upon unpaved roads and unpredictable ferry crossings, Mr. Barnum’s circus chugged steadily along all the new streamlined tracks that linked the country together. In the winter, he parked the show in Bridgeport; in the spring, he launched the new season in New York, in the giant Hippodrome at the Madison Square Garden, which seated thousands.
In 1881, when we joined his circus, he had partnered with so many other circus owners, consolidating everything into one grand show, that I had difficulty keeping them all straight—there was a Mr. Bailey, a Mr. Hutchinson, a Mr. Sanger; the show now was called the Barnum and London Circus. We arrived at the cavernous, roofless Madison Square Garden—formerly a train station until the new Grand Central Station was built, when it became an outdoor arena for spectacles—in the spring. The colossal tents were going up, over the three immense rings of the circus; the place was a madhouse of sawdust and people upon wires and animals forever being exercised and trained. Awed, and not a little intimidated, by the enormity of the operation, Charles and I were overjoyed to see Mr. and Mrs. Bleeker once more; their friendship and familiarity were more welcome than the practical assistance they would provide in helping us navigate the usual difficulties of travel—getting on and off trains, managing luggage, reaching hotel beds, opening windows, etc.
However, from the moment we boarded the vast circus train, after the last performance in New York, I thought we had made a mistake. While our accommodations were, by far, superior to everyone else’s, they were far from luxurious. Charles and I did not have a private car, only half a car, to ourselves. An entire circus company is gargantuan; I was reminded of that canvas city of soldiers we had visited just after our marriage. There were stagehands and construction workers and animal handlers; publicity men, ticket takers, popcorn sellers; wardrobe girls, prop men, barkers; an army of men responsible for raising and lowering the tents and packing them up; cooks, laundresses, boys whose jobs were just to take care of the animal waste; wagon drivers. And that’s not even counting the performers! Trapeze artists, specialty riding acts, jugglers, dancers, a woman who gyrated upon a pyramid of chairs, gymnasts, wrestlers, high-wire acts, Japanese acrobats who balanced upon their fingertips—not to mention all the animals!
Even though I had grown up on a farm, the overwhelming odor of all those captive creatures made my nostrils close up and my eyes water; I couldn’t bear to walk past the animal cars after a long night’s trip. Mr. Barnum had to have special cars built for the giraffes, elephants, lions, and tigers; all the rest, the zebras, peacocks, goats, sheep, all the many horses and