Puttosopuzrs have not disdained to. enjoy the Circus. The great master Dickens, who indeed touched nothing that he did not adorn, and who drew his sketches of life so unerringly because he had thoroughly studied his subject: before he touched it off, has put the circus on the plane it deserves in his picture of "Sleary's Horsemanship" in Hard Times, a book which inaugrated the revolt of English opinion against the oppressive dowmatisin' of what was then known as the Manchester School. In the last speech that the "Perthon of the name of Thleary in the Horthe-Riding' way—thtout man—game eye" makes to Mr. Gradgrind, he puts. the defence of the circus in a nutshell. "Don't be eroth with uth poor vagabordth. People mutt be amuthed. "They can't be alwayth-a-learning, nor yet they can't'be alwayth a-working, they ant made for it. You mutt have uth, Thquire. Do the withe thing and the kind thing too, and make the beth of uth; not the wartht! And I never thought before," said Mr. Sleary putting his head in at the door again to say it, "that I wath the muth of a Cackler!" Another philosopher has said that while some wine is better than other, there is no bad wine; and so we may say that while some circuses are better than others, there are no bad circuses. Just as a good book is still a good book though badly printed on coarse paper in a New York pirate's twenty-five cent edition, so a performing horse gives us as much pleasure though he has only three or four equine and three or four human colleagues, and goes round and round in wa small and shabby tent at the little way-stations. Tu fact as a Tauchnitz is far more readable than an edition de luxe, so is a moderate-sized circus with a fairly good company of performers far tore interest~ ing to the man of moderate tastes than Barnum's belauded show with its three rings and its magnificent distances, the Circus now here fulfils all the conditions that the circus-goer of moderate tastes could desire to impose. The tent, elliptical in shape, is large enough, but not so large as to make the spectator wish he had brought a telescope with him. Many of the company are old friends; they were here before with the lamented Chiariui, and they are as welcome when they come with El 's former " star," now his successor. If only two or three hours' amusement were to be derived from attending the Circus, its existence would be justified, but there is much education in it for those who do not hold with amusement unless it is accom-nied by instruction. The object lessons in natural history which the horses and dogs and elephants give is priceless. We may read in books how animals may be trained by kindness and patience to perform feats entirely foreign to their nature, and which intelligent human beings even require years to learn to accomplish; but the trath of this is impressed on us in a tenth of the time when we see the animals doing it, and doing it, in the case certainly of the dogs and apparently of the horses, with real enjoyment. The elephants, which after all are only babies and probably do not know what they think, are somewhat impassive, and it is difficult for the spectator to make up his mind whether. they enjoy going through their exercises or not while they seemed to think it a little ignominious to have to walk along with their forefoot on barrels, they had no objection to sawing on- a. plank. After all,-there is something: reassuring in the extreme gravity they maintain throughout this somewhat undignified performance. here is a lesson on the preservation of equanimity—which they might have got from Horace—in difficult circumstances, for it must be! difficult even for two baby elephants to stand firmly on the enids of an unstable plank balanced ona pivot. Then what jasones of lessous''in ceutrifagal force the scenes of horsemanship in the ring provide, and how fruitful'in suggestions as to the maiuteusince of equilibrium is the marvellous performance of Kooma on the "slack-jeff." Could any scientific book prove to a boy the fact that he can see for himself: at_ the Cirque Harmston, that a man, assisted only bya paper. parasol and a fan, can stand on one foot on a slack rope and swing himself to, and fro with the most perfect nonchalance 'There is, indeed no end to the lessons which an instructor of a scientific turn could derive from the feats of the circus people. Many of the' acrobatic feats, too, have all the authority of antiquity. Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities shows that the Romans enjoyed some of the very same feats that may' be' soon to-night at Harmston's; and the Egyptians and the Chinese enjoyed them before the Romans. Of the tastes of the Hittites we have' less record; but they probably delighted in gladiatorial contests. - Cireuses have borne their part too in the government of great peoples, 'The Romans, the conquerors of the world, were satisfied if they had their Panem et Circenses, Did not the head' of the English government hint the other day that it would be as good to give the country a circus in every village as.a Parish Council The Circus in tact, particularly when it is so good a one as that of W. B. Harinston &*Son, reeds no defence or apology to healthy-minded people. There is, we are told, no endowment so necessary to success as application. In the theatre, if an actor delivers a speech badly, he cannot go back and do it again; but in the circus, if a performer "misses his tip," he has.to go at it again until he succeeds. "'Try, try again!" is the law of the hippodrome and to have this practically impressed on the young is an education in itself,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.