Fire-Eater’s Feud with Bearded Lady

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1076, 13 September 1930, Page 18

Fire-Eater’s Feud with Bearded Lady

i Reminiscences of the “ Big Top ”... Circus Days and Nights . . . When Col. Cody Visited His Home Town ! &, HE “big top" is on the j move again . . . moving to the music of creaking I wagon hubs and the click i of steel rails . . . moving the flicker of torches and arcs; up with the dawn and gone with the night . . . moving under storm and star . . . dragging through spoke-deep mud and skimming over ice-smooth highways . . . meeting a thousand advertisers, and getting a thousand breaks. And always moving on, for the song of the big tops is this; “I am the circus, here today and gone tomorrow.” Along dusty country roads, barefoot boys still stand in excited awe before the gaudy and alluring posters of the wonders to be unfolded in the big town which lies down the road. Dexter W. B'ellows, a man grown grey in the service of tinsel and carnival, tells an interesting tale of a thrilling life. His experiences are narrated by Gilbert. Swan in the Toronto “Star.” “First,” began Dexter, “I’ll answer a few questions that people have been asking. “There’s been a lot of talk about motorising the circuses. But we’ve stayed circus and will. Elephants and horse-power still haul our wagons over the lots, and the trained elephants still carry our stakes and poles. I don’t know, but when you hit one of those muddy lots with a motor-driven vehicle, you’re always getting stuck. It takes elephants and horses to drag ’em out. And then there’s a circus flavour about the big horse teams. “That reminds me of a story. “A few years ago, we had an old fellow with the big show who was a | particularly great horseman. When l it came to teams there were few to beat him in the world. A 10 or 20horse team was nothing to him. And all his life he had nursed an ambition. He wanted to drive a 40-horse I team. The time came when he got I his chance. And was he proud? You . couldn’t keep him away from them. “Every day he’d perch up in his seat, take the reins and away he would go. the proudest man in the world. Well,"he was getting pretty old, and it got to be part of his life. He’d bore everyone to death with the story of his horses, like a father talks about the smart things his child says. “We went into winter quarters. All the horses were sent out, and the old fellow was all by himself in Bridgeport, which was then the winter camping ground. All through the winter months he brooded. Each day came, and he’d worry about his horses. We began to be bothered about him. * “But he got worse and worse—and one morning they found him dead. He’d just naturally broken his heart because he’d been separated from his horses. The circus is full of stories to match that one. “By the way, did I ever tell you the story about the Baroness de Barcy, our bearded lady? No? Well, she was literally driven from the circus, and we’ve never had a bearded lady since. Bearded ladies, by the way, are getting pretty scarce. “After we lost her, we advertised for a successor. And one day a woman came in who had been a bearded lady, and reformed. I mean she had removed her beard. She’d had a romance with one of the performers and had shaved off her beard. But to show us that she could become a bearded lady again if we wanted her, she let the beard grow for a few days. Her

j husband raised so much Cain about itj that she changed her mind, i “But that’s getting away from the i baroness. They used to say that her title was not ‘phoney.’ Anyway, she : !could speak three or four languages j fluently and was more than ordinarily ; j clever. “All went well until she got into some sort of a feud with the fire- j eater. Don’t laugh—a lot of people have laughed at this one. But it’s true,, every word of it. Didn’t she leave the . circus to avoid a nervous breakdown? The thing had slowly been driving j her mat for a whole season. “No one ever found out what the 1 feud was about; they only knew that j the fire eater was determined on some form of vengeance. In the course of j the season’s tour they were placed i chair to chair in the side show. “Then it was that this extraordinary plot took shape. One day, just be-1 fore he took his mouthful of fire, he whispered to the Baroness, ‘Now I’ll get you.’ Wherewith he shot his stream of flame directly at her pree- 1 ious beard. She dodged just in time. ; There was an odour of burning hair, j and at one of the edges the beard was j slightly singed. You see, the fire eater I knew well that she had one of the [ most valuable beards in the circus business. “It was her stock in trade. It was quite a while before any of us found j out what had been going on behind j the scenes of the side show. But the Baroness was breaking under the strain. At least once a day the vengeful fire eater would take a shot at her beard with the flame. She never j knew when it was coming. “Sometimes, when the crowd had \ gathered in the tent, he would turn about quickly and let go. Then he j would pass It off as a joke. He would make some ‘wisecrack’ to the customers, who would laugh and think it funny. But to the Baroness it was no joke. “The season ended just in time to save her. She was on the verge of a complete collapse and was in the hands of a physician for several weeks. She left the circus—and I’ve never seen her from that day to this.” And so we fell to talking about funny incidents. “Let’s see—funny things? I don't | believe there ever was a funnier j show put on than that staged by Buf-1 falo Bill when he went back to his j home place, North Platte. In case i you don’t know it, the wild west show j was born In that town. I was Cody’s ! Press man for a long time. “Anyway, liis cowboy troupe had j grown until he toured the country | with it, and then went abroad. “With a world-wide reputation in j his pocket, the colonel had one I dream. He wanted to take his show ! back to North Platte and give the home folks an idea what he had j I done. "So we came into North Platte, i And you can imagine what happened in those good old days when there i were ‘bars in them thar hills.’ The ! colonel and the whole troupe hit for i the leading bar to celebrate. And ! was there whoopee? . “So it went until it came to show ' time. The boys were at the grounds on time, but the first thing that hap-' pened worried me. The colonel, when he came riding in, instead of his regular speech, began a very sentimental talk about coming home. That would have been all right, \ hut the next act was a champion rope j performer, a Spanish lad. We knew j

that the cowboys out there would have a close eye on him. And was that lad tight? He started some 0 { the routine tricks and inside of three minutes he was so tangled in his own loops that he almost hanged himself “I was pretty worried,“for I soon found out that the ropers were missing their steers and the broncho riders were getting thrown all over the place It was a riot—never anything like it Even the Indians had got hold of some ‘red-eye.’ “By this time I was scared to deathbegan to wonder what, the newspaper would say. I knew that if the show was criticised severely, it would break Cody's heart, for this was his home port. "Almost out of breath, I ran to the editor's office and asked what he was going to say. I almost got thrown out for my trouble. “ ‘Say, lad,’ said the editor, ‘lf Butfalo Bill came home here and his crowd didn’t get tight we wouldn't think we were good hosts. Run along now while you’re healthy. Bill and his bunch will get the whole paper.’ ” “How about the clowns? Yes, 1 know, everyone likes to hear about clowns. “There’s the tragic story of Slivers. I’m not sure anyone knows all of iq but of all the laugh-clown-laugh stories ever told, the fade-out of Slivers has always seemed to me the saddest You see, I saw Slivers on that night when he and the circus parted company for the last time. He was acting queerly then and he finally killed himself. “Anyhow. Slivers was a great clown and a great artist. He was a spotlight performer, made for one ring or the theatre. “Slivers, they said, was worried by a lot of things. In the circus, they all said he was terribly smitten with a girl bareback rider we had. Slivers just pined his heart away for that girl, but nothing ever happened, and I don't think he ever got over it. “Well, after he'd been in the theatre a long while, he had a yearning for the circus again. He felt he had to get back. Otto Ringling, who used to look after the hiring of performers, was sitting in his tent when the flap opened and Slivers was standing there. “ 'Hello, Slivers! What are you doing here?’ “‘Hello, Mr. Otto! I'd like to get back to the circus.’ “Well, that led to talkiug salary, but the circus wouldn’t meet his demand.-. The great clown put on his hat and walked out. It was getaway night I happened to be around the tent when they were beginning to tear down. The gas torches were blowing in the wind. A_ light rain had begun to fall. Ail of a sudden a guard came out of the darkness. “ ‘There’s a queer duck hanging around the elephant tent. Says he’s with the circus. Says he's Slivers, the clown.’ “Three of us went back. We each took a torch and made our way through the darkness. Suddenly we almost bumped into a fellow who was stumbling across the black lot. “The fellow was mumbling to himself. We listened. He was saying, over and over again. ‘They don’t want me any more. I’m Slivers, the clown, and they don't want me, they don't want me.’ “I'm telling you it was enough to break your heart. We tried to com fort him, but he broke away. And you know the rest.”