Circus
He eventually got sick of trying and sold the two boys to a traveling sideshow, where they would remain for the next 14 years as it toured through the United States, Canada, and Europe. The crowds that came to see them "perform" in these shows made their father's abuse seem almost tame, for one of the sideshow owner's gimmicks was to challenge audience members to try and wake the Eddys from their psychic trances. They were beaten and abused almost daily, and even stoned and shot at on occasion by mobs believing them to be possessed by demons. However, this information reported by Olcott seems exaggerated. Census reports, albeit only every 10 years, show the two brothers living in Chittenden their entire lives.
Read more about this topic: Eddy Brothers
Famous quotes containing the word circus:
“Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey-cage.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“It beats sitting around with my butt in a sling.”
—Antoinette Cancello, U.S. circus aerialist. As quoted in WomenSports magazine, p. 35 (January 1976)
“Winter and summer till old age began
My circus animals were all on show,
Those stilted boys, that burnished chariot,
Lion and woman and the Lord knows what.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)