Ringling Bros. Circus closing

[Kevin H]

I just got online after coming home from work tonight and was shocked to read that the Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus is closing down.  http://www.aol.com/article/2017/01/14/ringling-bros-circus-folding-its-tent-after-nearly-150-years/21655111/

I remember seeing it in Los Angeles in 1964 or 5, and in New York City when I was probably around 10, 11 or 12. I always loved animal and clown acts (sorry I saw the acrobats and jugglers as boring.)

There is also one if not two connections between this show and the church. Mrs. White wrote a comment discouraging attending the circus. Willie White believed that his mother's criticism did not apply to Mr. Barnum's show and was planning to take his children to attend. But he got too many comments on "How can Mrs. White's children attend the circus after that comment by Mrs. White." To not offend anyone they decided not to attend.

The second connection I read about in one paper in the White Estate at Andrews. I have not seen this information confirmed, but it mentioned that Mrs. White and P. T. Barnum were friendly acquaintances and that he sponsored a number of her health lectures. Now I have read about how Mr. Barnum was a Christian and aware of the criticisms like Mrs. White's comments about the circus and that he purposely worked with religion leaders to find out what their criticisms were and took out the offensive material so that it would be family friendly and to do away with the reasons religious leaders discouraged attending the circus. (I wonder if Mrs. White was one of these religious leaders he worked with to make his show different from what they criticized.)

[Jeannieb43]

I've attended the circus many times throughout my life, both as a child and later as a wife and mother, never thinking there was any problem with it.   Nowadays the animal rights movement, however, has set me to thinking about how the elephants (especially) are being treated -- sometimes harshly in order to train them.  So I have stopped attending the circus.   But I do appreciate the programs having trained horses and riders, they amaze me and I love seeing them perform.  I believe having a horse gallop really fast doesn't hurt it at all, in fact that's what they love to do.

But I don't know why EGW would have written against such things.

[phkrause]

My impression has been that they've been closing down for many years!!

[phkrause]

I heard parts of a interview on the news. They were mentioning that basically it had to do with the Elephants. The word was that the treatment of the elephants was what the problem was. And they had to get rid of them. Also I heard on NPR a guy that work for them as a clown, that kids were afraid of them, so they had to go too. Also less and less people were bringing there kids to see the show.