Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/157



NE of the ever-present bugbears of the circus management is railroad wrecks. An assistant manager for Barnum and Bailey tells that he was in thirteen wrecks in twelve years, and he thought himself lucky to escape with his life. This is not strange, for the circus trains are ever on the move. But even this would not account for so many wrecks, were it not for the fact that the trains are always run as specials, being shoved in between others, and often held up on sidings while the regular trains thunder by, so it is not strange that they often come to grief.

Moreover, no company will insure a circus against either accidents or fire. So the owners are their own insurance company,