Elwood Winslow Pierce - Mentalist

Date of Application: February 12th, 1946
Name: Elwood Winslow Pierce
Title of Act: Mentalist

Description of Act:
I can read minds with 80% accuracy. Audience-selected playing cards are identified without the use of sleight-of-hand. I can bend spoons and other flatware using my mental power and have on occasion moved a chair across the floor when the moon is right. I can cause children to faint using my mind and by utilizing powerful hypnosis, I have made grown men strut and cluck like chickens. I can also cure colds, grippe, croup, the dropsy, trench-mouth, rickets and pemphigus with the laying of hands.

Other Talents: I am a disease enthusiast and spend much of my spare time gathering plants, minerals, precious liquids and chemicals used in the preparation of healing unctions and poultices.

Notes: Mr. Pierce is an intense individual with a rather prickly disposition, as is the way with most mentalists. I imagine their brains are a little more tender and edgy than ours, due to the extra activity going on inside, so I have never held a sour mood against those of the mentalist ilk. He correctly identified cards I plucked from a deck without apparent trickery, but was unable to move a chair or bend a butter knife, as the moon wasn't "right". Mr. Pierce bristled when I suggested that any mentalist act I might employ would need to be able to perform consistently on a daily basis, rather than every fortnight, as allowed by lunar permissions. I asked if he could guess my weight and he testily replied, "If you're thinking it..." So I thought my weight and his guess was eight pounds high. Not entirely convinced of his mentalist abilities, I have nonetheless offered Mr. Elwood a position as a part-time mentalist (every fortnight). The rest of his time will be spent acting as a doctor for the troupe, who are always smashing their fingers, rolling their ankles or coming down with the croup or some such. We can always use a good poultice or unction. This contracted has been extended on a six-month trial basis, as we enter our heavy travel season.

-Miller Hatsfield
Senior Roustabout and Hiring Manager
The Salty Peters Traveling Carnival, Roadshow and Burlesque Review

Etta Mae Flowers - Aerialist

Date of Application: May 17, 1939
Name: Etta Mae Flowers
Title of Act: Aerialist

Description of Act:
I am equally comfortable on a high wire or trapeze. I have no fear of heights and my balance is unequalled. I have an array of dazzling leotard which fit quite snuggly and double as a hootchie-kootchie outfits as needed. My extraordinary limberness makes my aerial acrobatics even more fetching and gives me a "leg up" in the hootchie-kootch.

Other Talents: I can cipher and do bookkeeping and mend all my own costumes, which can become ragged if not kept up.

Notes: Even as I explained to Miss Flowers that we are a carny outfit and not a circus and had no real place for an aerial act, she proceeded to scamper up a tent pole and perform a series of twists, turns and spins that were quite jaw-dropping. The fact that she did this in a dowdy skirt made the performance even more impressive, as the excited whistles and applause from the roustabouts in attendance proved. Miss Flowers is indeed very limber and I have hired her on as a hootchie girl. She will also help out with bookkeeping and costume repair. As she has no trailer of her own, she will bunk in my coach until other arrangements can be made. This is strictly on a temporary basis.

- Miller Hatsfield
Senior Roustabout
The Salty Peters Traveling Carnival, Roadshow and Burlesque Review

Charlie Roundstreet - Geek

Date of Application: March 7th, 1942
Name: Charles Lee Roundstreet
Title of Act: Geek

Description of Act:
My wild man act is of the primitive nature. I stand in the middle of a ring and I chase chickens. When I catch a chicken, I bite the head off and I chew it and I swallow it. I can eat up to seven chicken heads per day. More than that and I flounder with a wet stomach. My act has very little overhead, as I supply the cookie with all the chicken they need to feed the outfit while I save them the trouble of the chasing of the chicken and the chopping off of the chicken heads. I can also eat live toads and lizards if they are small. I have eaten live gopher, rat and prairie dog, but my tender stomach doesn't agree with the meat.

Other Talents: I can find my way around a hammer and nail and I am able to do some wrenching on the mechanical units if the roustabouts need a hand. I cannot sew or draw. My painting skills are middling.

Notes: Mr. Roundstreet was an affable enough fellow, if a mite dim-witted, which is expected in the majority of the geek population. I am not certain that the geek act is as big of a draw as it was during the height of the depression, so I am hesitant to hire the young man, though he is willing to work for meager pay if I keep him supplied in gin. As I do not have a reliable supplier of gin at a cut-rate, I believe we will pass on Mr. Roundstreet. I gave him the name of a chicken farm in Alabama where he may be able to find reliable employment, if he should be unable to land a position geeking.

- Miller Hatsfield
Senior Roustabout and Hiring Manager
The Salty Peters Traveling Carnival, Roadshow and Burlesque Review

Otis Pillsbury - Equilibrist

Date of Application: September 1, 1938
Name: Otis Wilson Pillsbury
Title of Act: Equilibrist

Summary of Act:
I can balance on any number of rolling objects, such as large balls, unicycles or the rola-bola, as well as sitting objects (high poles, stilts, ladders and other human beings). My specialty is sitting atop a high pole under strenuous circumstances. I set the record of high pole sitting in Yell County, Arkansas in 1926 by sitting comfortably atop a telegraph pole for seventeen days. I ate by having food hoisted up to me in a picnic hamper by a rope.

I can balance atop a horse or other sturdy beast running at a reasonable pace and can balance equally well on my hands as well. I currently have a unicycle and rola-bola, but my large ball was stolen while I was working as a street performer in Yonkers.

 Notes: Mr. Pillsbury seemed a very calm man, unperturbed by the sights and sometimes chaotic sounds of the outfit. While some interviewees are jumpy or on edge, Pillsbury showed no emotion at the occasional shout, roar or gunshot. I was struck by a certain melancholy in the man, especially noticeable when he spoke of his large ball being stolen by East Coast hooligans. It is likely Pillsbury would be a worthy addition to the carnival - we can always use a good balancing act and Pillsbury demonstrated his abilities on various sundry objects around the grounds. I was especially impressed with his one handed perching on a free-standing stout rod while consuming an apple to the core with his free hand. I also think that his sense of calm and true moral compass could prove useful with some of the younger, more impressionable acts and rousts.

-Miller Hatsfield, Senior Roustabout and Hiring Manager
The Salty Peters Traveling Carnival, Roadshow and Burlesque Review

Cambridge Merriweather - Sad Clown

Date of Application: April 22, 1937
Name: Cambridge Ames Merriweather
Title of Act: Sad Clown

Summary of Act:
I was a sad clown with the Ringling outfit for three and a half years. Before that, I traveled extensively with an Indian circus in Europe that caught fire and managed to burn 14 simian and 3 big cats. A midget act also perished in the flames, which was unfortunate, because one of those was my wife and another my mistress. I didn't mind losing the tiny wife - she bordered on the shrewish and was free with my money - but the little mistress I still miss sometimes when I smell fry bread.

The Ringling Brothers let me go in New Jersey, when I was caught running a three-card Monte game on the boardwalk on my off-day. If the Ringlings weren't so tight with a dollar, I wouldn't have needed to run the game. I can apply various sad clown makeups and juggle with pins and small balls, if they are weighted properly and well-rounded. I can no longer do the pratfall, since I slipped a disc in Birmingham. I can run a profitable three-card Monte and am fair at close sleight-of-hand. I cannot fold balloon animals. I have tried, but they pop and make the sprats cry.

Notes: In these difficult times, it is my notion that happy clowns are better business for the carnival. We have Domino, the Sad Clown, who while often drunk, still seems plenty of sad clown for the time being. Plus, the Conjurer act and the Fortune Teller tend from the sullen to the morose. When approached with the option of perhaps being a happy clown, Mr. Merriweather went into a huff, snatched up his hat and left my coach. Somehow, he managed to obtain a roustie's whitewash brush and drew a giant white cock and balls on the side of the menagerie trailer. I have added him to the "Do Not Hire" list.

-Miller Hatsfield
Manager in Charge of Hiring and Senior Roustabout
The Salty Peters Traveling Carnival, Roadshow and Burlesque Review
April the 22nd, 1937