CIRCUS VISITS CHRISTCHURCH

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28513, 17 February 1958, Page 12

CIRCUS VISITS CHRISTCHURCH

Crowd Watches, Arrival

The circus has come to town. More than 1000 persons yesterday morning watched Bullen’s Circus unloading from the railway at Addington and taking up its camp in Hagley Park. Even while the waggons were on the road, children were peering in at the animals—dogs, lions, bears, leopards, monkeys and kangaroos.

In the park, children stood three and four deep waiting to look into the cages. Others fed the nine elephants. One boy had a haversack full of apples and pears which he, held out to Sue, which wound the top of her truck round the fruit and delicately placed it in her mouth. Some children wanted to help to put up the tents, “But it is becoming mechanised,” said Mr S. Bullen, as a piledriving machine with a hydraulic hoist was driven past. Even so, two elephants—Alice and Peggy—helped. All the elephants have jobs to do, but Alice seemed far more interested in the hay under the trees than the chains she was expected to drag. The circus is a big one, with more than 70 animals and 120 performers and workmen, but everything was set up for the opening performance today inside three hours.

The performers and animal trainers come from Germany, the United States, England, Spain. Belgium. France and Poland as well as Australia. Bullen’s Circus has been travelling in New Zealand since October, and everyone has been living in trains. New Zealand sec-ond-class railway carriages are not up to the same standard of comfort as the semi-trailer and tandem-trailer caravans they travel in in Australia.