One Monstor Concern! Three Circuses!

[unicornforge]

Circuses were, and still are a rough way to earn a living. At the bottom are what I call the rent-a-circuses. The local fire company or Shrine sits down with a promoter and chooses from a menu of acts and puts together a circus as a fund raiser. If your fundraising group has a clown group that can perform one or two acts at each showing, then your group saves money by not having to pay for those time slots at each of those shows. While it was fun to perform in the modern ring as a non-paid once-a-year clown, it was exhausting to be in makeup all day and evening long, for three shows a day, selling programs, and putting makeup on kids. And I felt that the professional performers appeared to be very sad and seemed sorry for themselves. I can not even imagine how difficult and miserable it was to live and work in a circus during the 19th century.

 

[jenmay286]

Made me think of a famous idiom which is polish "not my circus, not my monkeys" I guess I really never realized how long the circus has been around. Very interesting insight into it. I have read from old newspapers in my area of Mississippi during the 1850's a gentleman traveled the hillsides with his old mule to perform. People would travel town to town to see him.