Evening Star Newspaper, December 9, 1934, Page 99

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C., DECEMBER 9, 1034 Deep down in the consciousness of the man or the woman who lives dangerously lies the sinister specter of fear, and it is not surprising that circus performers who risk their necks daily are superstitious BY F. BEVERLY KELLY. LACK cats, broken mirrors, haunted houses and walking under ladders hold no horrors for the circus trouper, but he has a lot of pet superstitions peculiar to the nomadic world of red wagons and flashing spangles. ‘The circur performer will play poker with death twice a day for seven or eight months in all sorts of weather and against ob- vious odds, and his serenity in the face of dis- aster will lead you to conclude he has tempered steel where his nerves ought to be; yet if you nonchalantly throw your hat on his bed, he probably will fiare up with a vengeance. Put- ting hats on beds is bad luck. Ask almost any circus trouper. So is whistling in the dressing tent bad luck. And the band must not play “Home, Sweet Home” under any circumstances until the show’s closing stand. To play this num- ber prior to the last performance of the season is to invite trouble. Even the bill posters and li- thographers who travel on the advertising cars a week or two ahead of the circus are supersti- tious. They believe that a visit to the car by a hunchback indi- cates a very lucky day. And if Yyou were a circus bill poster, you'd probably post your last “stand”™ of the season upside down. Al- most as old as circus advertising itself is the belief that this is good luck. TKE icy hand of superstition even reaches out to touch the caused by a loaded wagon catching a wheel in one of the-~stakes to which the Wallenda rigging was guyed out through the canvas side wall and an- chored in the circus back yard. The wire was shaken imperceptibly, but it felt like an earth- quake to the human pyramid in the dome of the big top. UDDENLY the pyra- mid coilapsed. Two of the men caught the wire with their hands and S The late Lillian Leitzel, who fell to her death in Copenhagen when an iron ring broke—signifi- cantly enough, say circus folk, on Friday, 13th. be the jinx that year. After that a capacity crowd at opening performance presages bad business for the ree- mainder of the season. Ele« phants are thought to be good Juck and the first one born in the United States really was responsible for the combinae The Wallendas, experts on the high wire, performing outside the circus tent during am engagement in Chicago. Karl Wallenda wears a ring which he believes safeguards them in their perilous stunts. dan- legs as they fell Karl hanging by his hands . on giving only, caught Helen between his legs as she unged clear of the wire and in a position to miss it entirely. A et was stretched beneath i At river FRErptiE i 8 L . of a show that had ascriptural quotations ke & three-high human pyramid on & high wire— & feat unprecedented in ecireus history. That fateful night in Akron the trouble was painted on its wagons for good luck. This was ineffective, however, until the mansager fired & peg-legged cook who was thought by all to