A CIRCUS. GOVERXMEXTAL SHOWS. 145 



had before experienced, richly clad in costumes, striped, bespan- 

 gled and radiant with burnished silver and shining gold, they 

 seemed to many an unlettered and untraveled looker-on, four- 

 fold more the children of the sun than did the Sjoanish discoverers 

 of 1492. The new Jerusalem, as seen in the fervid dreams 

 of Nassau's dusky, religious devotees, surely cannot boast so 

 gorgeous a chariot, nor do horses of equal grace and beauty tread 

 the golden and jewelled streets of their celestial city. A wild 

 and bewildering excitement took possession of Grant's Town, 

 and, like an electric atmosphere, pervaded the thoroughfares and 

 by-ways of Nassau itself. While the show lasted, the contribu- 

 tions levied upon the guests of the Eoyal Victoria Hotel, to 

 enable the little negroes to see it and be forever happy, were quite 

 formidable in number if not in amount. Indeed, some of the 

 juveniles were smart and enterprising enough to make it an ex- 

 cuse for obtaining a good supply of shillings for future use. We 

 suspect that the circus as a motive power and moral force in the 

 world has been underestimated. We esteemed it more highly after 

 we witnessed its effects in that island of unending summer. In- 

 dolence retired, and ambition came out of its tomb of death at 

 its approach. Long live the circus ! 



As we have elsewhere shown, the forms, ceremonies, symbols, 

 trappings and paraphranalia of a royal government, furnish an 

 integral and very important part of Nassau's amusements. In 

 this point of view, colonial institutions on a monarchial model 

 are a real godsend. For people living outside of the limits of 

 the great world of human activity and life, without railroads, 

 telegraphs, steamboats, telephones, capital, enterprise, or busi- 

 ness, it seems to be a pleasant but expensive diversion. 



A whist club exists'at Nassau. It is composed of the governor, 

 and a few high officials and prominent citizens, numbering, as we 

 were informed, some fifteen in all. They meet twice a week, in 



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