Charles G. Finney - The Circus of Dr. Lao

In the Abalone (Arizona) Morning Tribune for August third there appeared on page five an advertisement eight columns wide and twenty-one inches long. In type faces grading from small pica to ninety-six point the advertisement told of a circus to be held in Abalone that day, the tents to be spread upon a vacant field on the banks of the Santa Ana River, a bald spot in the city's growth surrounded by all manner of houses and habitations.
Floridly worded, the advertisement made claims which even Phineas Taylor Barnum might have hedged at advancing. It alleged for the show's female personnel a pulchritude impossible to equal in any golden age of beauty or physical culture. The mind of man could not conceive of women more beautiful than were the charmers of this circus. Though the whole race of man were bred for feminine beauty as the whole race of Jersey cattle is bred for butterfat, even then lovelier women could not be produced than the ones who graced this show.... Nay, these were the most beautiful women of the world; the whole world, not just the world of today, but the world since time began and the world as long as time shall run.
Nor were the wild animals on display at the circus any less sensational than were the girls. Not elephants or tigers or hyenas or monkeys or polar bears or hippopotami; anyone and everyone had seen such as those time after time. The sight of an African lion was as banal today as that of an airplane. But here were animals no man had ever seen before; beasts fierce beyond all dreams of ferocity; serpents cunning beyond all comprehension of guile; hybrids strange beyond all nightmares of fantasy.
Furthermore, the midway of the circus was replete with sideshows wherein were curious beings of the netherworld on display, macabre trophies of ancient conquests, resurrected supermen of antiquity. No glass-blowers, cigarette fiends, or frogboys, but real honest-to-goodness freaks that had been born of hysterical brains rather than diseased wombs.
Likewise, the midway would house a fortuneteller. Not an ungrammatical gypsy, not a fat blonde mumbling silly things about dark men in your life, not a turbaned mystic canting of the constellations; no, this fortuneteller would not even be visible to you, much less take your hand and voice generalities concerning your life lines. Anonymous behind the veil of his mystery he would speak to you and tell you of foreordained things which would come into your life as the years unfolded. And you were warned not to enter his tent unless you truly wanted to know the truth about your future, for never under any conditions did he lie about what was going to happen; nor was it possible for you after learning your future to avert in any way its unpleasant features. He absolutely would not, however, forecast anything of an international or political nature. He was perfectly capable of so doing, of course, but the management had found that such prophecies, inasmuch as they were invariably true, had in the past been used to unfair and dishonorable advantage by unscrupulous financiers and politicians: that which had been meant for mankind had been converted to personal gain which was not ethical.
And for men only there was a peepshow. It was educational rather than pornographic. It held no promise of hermaphroditic goats or randy pony stallions lusting after women. Nor any rubberstamp striptease act. But out of the erotic dramas and dreams of long-dead times had been culled a figure here, an episode there, a fugitive vision elsewhere, all of which in combination produced an effect that no ordinary man for a long series of days would forget or, for that matter, care to remember too vividly. Because of the unique character of this segment of the circus, attendance would be limited to men over twenty-one, married men preferred; and absolutely no admittance to any man under the influence of liquor.
In the main tent the circus performance proper, itself diverting beyond description with colorful acts and remarkable scenes, would end with a formidable spectacle. Before your eyes would be erected the long-dead city of Woldercan and the terrible temple of its fearful god Yottle. And before your eyes the ceremony of the living sacrifice to Yottle would be enacted: a virgin would be sanctified and slain to propitiate this deity who had endured before Bel-Marduk even, and was the first and mightiest and least forgiving of all the gods. Eleven thousand people would take part in the spectacle, all of them dressed in the garb of ancient Woldercan. Yottle himself would appear, while his worshipers sang the music of the spheres. Thunder and lightning would attend the ceremonies, and possibly a slight earthquake would be felt. All in all it was the most tremendous thing ever to be staged under canvas.
Admission 10 to the circus grounds proper, 25 admission to the big top; children in arms free. l0 admission to the sideshows, 50 admission to the peepshow. Parade at 11 A.M. Midway open at 2 P.M. Main show starts at 2:45. Evening performance at 8. Come one, come all. The greatest show on earth.

The first person to notice anything queer about the ad, aside from its outrageous claims, was the proofreader of the Tribune checking it for typographical errata the night before it appeared in the paper. An ad was an ad to Mr. Etaoin, the proofreader, a mass of words to be examined for possible error both of omission and commission, manner and matter. And his meticulous, astigmatic, spectacle-bolstered eyes danced over the type of this full-page advertisement, stopping at the discovery of transposition or mis-spelling long enough for his pencil to indicate the trouble on the margin of the proof, then dancing on through the groups of words to the end. After he had read the ad through and corrected what needed correcting, he held it up at arm's length to read over the bigger type again and ascertain whether he had missed anything at the first perusal. And looking at the thing in perspective that way, he discovered that it was anonymous, that it carried on endlessly as to the wonders of the show but never said whose show it was, that never a name appeared anywhere in all that overabundance of description.
"Something's screwy," reflected Mr. Etaoin. And he took the ad copy to the Tribune advertising manager for counsel and advice.
"Look here," he said to that gentleman, "here's a whole page of hooey about some circus and not a word as to whose circus it is. Is that O.K.? Is that the way it's supposed to run in the paper? Generally these circus impresarios are hell on having their names smeared all over the place."
"Let's see," said the ad manager, taking up the copy. "By God, that is funny. Who sold this ad, anyway?"
"Steele's name's on the ticket," offered the proofreader.
Advertising Solicitor Steele was summoned.
"Look here," said the ad manager, "there ain't any name or nothing on this ad. What about that?"
"Well, sir, I don't know," said Steele vaguely. "A little old Chinaman brought the copy in to me this morning, paid cash for the ad, and said it was to run just exactly the way it was written. He said we could use our judgment about the type face and so on, but the words must be exactly the way he had 'em. I told him O.K. and took the money and the ad, and that's all I know about it. I guess that's the way he wants it, though. He was so insistent we mustn't change anything."
"Yeah, but doesn't he want his name in there somewhere?" persisted the proofreader.
"Damn if I know," said Steele.
"Let it ride just the way it is," ruled the manager. "We got the money. That's the main thing in any business."
"Sure must be some show," said the proofreader. "Did you guys read this junk?"
"Nah, I didn't read it," said Steele.