Buy mouse circus, see the world

Press, 3 September 1984, Page 9

Buy mouse circus, see the world

For the person who has always wanted his own mouse circus there now is available the ideal opportunity; For the last 39 years a Christchurch man, Mr Morrie Jones, has travelled the world with his performing mice, putting them through their paces on mouse-sized circus equipment or supervising while they spelt names and answered mathematical problems. But now he is nearly blind and he is looking for someone with a spare $20,000 to buy the circus. Twenty thousand dollars for a mouse circus? Mr Jones believes it is a “gift” to the right person. The business comes complete with about 100 mice, a converted van, and circus equipment that includes 'a Im Ferris wheel, speedway, tightropes, “rock and roll barrel” and, of course, a big top and ring. - Mr Jones bought the circus in London in 1945, from a man who had taken four years to build it. Its success, Mr Jones says, lies in that careful construction. The equipment is designed to suit the instincts of the mice — they do the work themselves. “I don’t stand over them ■With a stockwhip Snd revolver. I don’t even have a

chair.” Mr Jones copied the original circus and once had 11 circuses, each with 100 to 150 mice. But for 26 years until 1980 he travelled round Asia and the Pacific in a 12m yacht. Although he modified the vessel to accommodate the mice, space did not permit him to .keep all the circuses.

In the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, New Caledonia, and New Guinea he showed the mice in shops, schools, and at showgrounds. “I went wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted. I would work with them for a month then have the next five months for sailing.” With school holidays the most time he could spend showing the mice was 180 days a year. “And who wants to work all that time?”

Mr Jones seems genuinely surprised when asked how much he earns in a full working week. “I don’t think I have ever worked a full week,” he says. If he did? — “I couldn’t avoid taking $4OOO clear of expenses.” His show is educational as well as entertaining, he says-' X “I knew nothing to Start with, but there is very little

I would not know about blooming mice now.” For instance, mice will work only in temperatures between 19deg. and 29deg., hence the need for a heat reflector hidden in the big top and an air conditioner for the tropics. Contrary to all the myths,' mice do not like cheese. They eat it only if very hungry and Mr Jones’s mice are too “spoilt” to humble themselves. They get seeds of all sorts which on Fridays are soaked in codliver oil and vitamins to keep their coats sleek. There are thousands of breeds of mice in New Zealand, and any type is suitable for the circus. An exceptional example, however, is the “waltzing mouse,” which has a strange habit of turning in a circle every few steps.

When Mr Jones returned to New Zealand in 1980 his mice (which he declared as “100 elephants”) were destroyed by Ministry of Agriculture officials. But it is never a problem getting new recruits for the circus. Government animal breeding stations breed 6 million mice annually, he says, and there are always the parents of children who “bought a pair and now have 50.”