WIRTHS’ BIG CIRCUS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1559, 11 March 1920, Page 37

WIRTHS’ BIG CIRCUS.

There will be excitement far the children and entertainment for the young and old on Friday, March 12, when the big circus and menagerie owned by Wirth Brothers, Limited, and personally conducted by the Wirths themselves, arrives in Auckland at the old dock site about 6 a.m. Two special trains will bring the huge caravansary to town in the early morning, and five ponderous elephants will drag the lumbering waggons and strings of animal cE|ges from the station to the circus ground. Almost before one can turn around the staff of a hundred workmen employed by the circus will have erected a canvas city of their own, covering an acre of ground, with 8000 square feet under canvas; a huge “big-top” with tier upon tier of seats to accommodate thousands of spectators; a great menagerie tent to house the elephants, lions, tigers, bears, leopards, panthers, jaguars, pumas, zebras, monkeys, seals, hyenas, and lynxes; stabling for 50 horses; an engine and dynamo, with complete electric lighting and power plant;, a kitchen and mess tent; and half a dozen smaller tents, used by the circus company. In the afternoon the menagerie, with all its wonders brought from foreign heathen lands and the waste spaces of the earth, all its enthralling interest and educational value, will be thrown open to the public for a small charge to see the wild animals being fed. Besides the old stock items of the circus programme, the,. Wirth Brothers will this year present a galaxy of seven super-star attractions, imported at great cost from America —the Eddy Duo, marvellous performers on the silver wire; the Cevine

Troupe (four ladies and two gentlemen), who dance, leap and somersault on tight wires more easily than most people could on the ground; the Three Garcias, in acrobatic feats; the Zoe Sisters, in spectacularly beautiful butterfly ballet in mid-air, swinging from cords held in their teeth; the Flying Winskills, with their Charlie Chaplin clown, in a comedy trapeze act; Leo Montfort, in the “Loop of Death”; Mlle. Belle Onra, a world-famous lady gymnast: Tex Bailey’s posing animals in living statuary; the marvellous Howards, mind readers; and last, but not least, Silly Danny, the clown, and his flock of trained geese, the first ever shown in Australasia. The large zoo will be open from 4 to 5 p.m„ when the animals will be fed.