The yellow book: an illustrated quarterly (7.1895)

Bread and the Circus

By Hubert Crackanthorpe

hey are the largest travelling circus in Europe. Their staff-


numbers over two hundred and fifty ; they have a hundred

and seventy horses, seven elephants, eight lions, two tigers, three
camels, and a dromedary ; their cortege on the road is sixty-three
waggons long. I joined them at Dieppe : they had parted with
their interpreter, and I took his place.

Monday, 2 a.m.—There was no moon ; all night the wind had
been screaming, driving spasmodic showers before it; overhead,
above the roofs, vague forms of tattered clouds were scudding.
In the market-place, flaring petroleum lights flitting to and fro ;
dim figures hurrying hither and thither through the darkness ;
loose horses neighing as they stampeded among the tent-ropes ;
incessant volleys of oaths echoing from wall to wall.
“Here,” Jim, the stud-groom, called to me, “hold this lot o’
’orses will yer ? ” He thrust a bundle of halter-ropes into my hand,
and disappeared into the darkness.
The bio- tent came down with a run, and lay before me bellying
and flapping in the wind, followed by the crashing of the poles, as
the men swung them into the tent-waggon. Close beside me, I

caught