rail allowed touring circuses to bypass the smallest towns
and to transport a vast array of props, trained animals, and human per-
formers. (Rail travel had its drawbacks: Jumbo the African Elephant
was tragically killed a locomotive in 1885. An undaunted P. T. Bar-
num promptly put Jumbo's skeleton on display.) The Sells Brothers
Circus, though by no means the largest, employed 500 men and women
and logged 13,852 miles on its 1895 tour. Mark Twain's Huck Finn de-
scribed the circus of this...