Ringling-Barnum (Date Unknown)

Scan000011195, originally uploaded by bucklesw1. This is a stock picture frequently used by the Ringling Press, taken in the 1930's and shows the elephant herd heading into the menagerie. Going thru my father's letters, I saw a copy of one sent he sent to Chappie Fox in response to the book he had written about the Ringling brothers in which he elaborated how they had brought honesty and integrity to the circus business. My dad pointed out that his glorious Ringlings were notoriously cheap when it came to feeding their elephants. He added that Ben Wallace and Mugivan & Bowers, tho laden with grift, had the fattest and best cared for elephants in the business. He once told me that when he was a kid with the Ringling Show working on lead stock, the elephants would march from the train and line up on the lot and while waiting for the menagerie to go up, Deafy Denman, in his high-pitched voice would say, "All right boys! Give 'em three bales of hay!" Which equated to one bale per ten elephants. John Ringling and George Denman departed the scene about the same time and pictures indicate the herd started to put on weight.