14 



but I had no idea, at that time, of entering the 

 business. 



The show moved to Penang ; thence to Bangkok, 

 Hongkong and Shanghai ; then to Japan. It was in 

 Tokyo that Gaylord had one of his bright ideas. He 

 organized, in conjunction with the circus, a Japan- 

 ese village, and, when we worked back over our 

 route, via Singapore and Australia, we carried forty 

 Japanese with us. Twelve of them were performers 

 and the remainder were artisans. We had minia- 

 ture Japanese houses, in which the artisans worked 

 at their trades, such as fan-making, wood-carving 

 and embroidering. Also we carried a big stock of 

 cheap Japanese goods, which were sold as the prod- 

 ucts of our traveling factory. The Japanese village 

 was a great success and brought a lot of money into 

 the show. 



In September, 1886, we struck Buenos Aires, 

 where the show had to buck the Carlos Brothers 

 the big South American outfit and bad weather. 

 During the long tour we had overcome many obsta- 

 cles, but that combination was too much. Fryer, 

 Gaylord and Fitzgerald decided to disband, and 

 most of the properties and animals were sold to the 

 Carlos Brothers. 



By hard work and careful saving, I had man- 

 aged to accumulate over $8,000; so I was happy 

 to head northward. I returned to New York by 

 way of London and in December I met Fitzgerald. 

 A short time afterward we were in St. Louis, where 



