Philippines Circus flyer - "Grand Opening Night Tonight Monday 12 Dic. 1898

Manila: S.i., 1898. Very Good. Santa Cruz, Manila: s.i., 1898. Small broadside (20.5cm x 12.5cm); blue-green paper with black lettering. Flyer lightly edgeworn with fold lines, a small brown stain near center, and some yellowish spotting to surface. Very Good overall.

English-language promotional flyer for the Philippines Circus on Calle Exhange, Santa Cruz, Manila, during the American Occupation, advertising a Grand Opening of Monday 12 Dec. 1898 - only two days after the signing of the Treaty of Paris officially ended the Spanish-American War - and a show of "Philippine acrobats, gymnast, clowns, pantomimists, wire walkers, jugglers...under the equestrian manager Pablo M. Tister."

A report from Manila by Sergeant Guy W. Hassler of the 1st Montana Volunteer Infantry published in the Pawnee Republican a few months later describes a night out begun in disappointment at the theatre - "With no program to enable us to distinguish the players or parts, we sat and listened in dumb attention to the play, which was a continuation of the preceding evening's performance and in a language the lingo of which we could not understand" - but salvaged a few blocks further down by Tister's circus, where the "performances are very skillfully and dexterously executed, and well attended by the soldier element, who appreciate that which they understand and give credit where credit is due." Hassler's account reproduces the full program, including juggling, trapeze, "native dance," comic antics by clowns, contortion, pantomime, somersaults, and more, though notably no equestrian acts despite the mention of Mr. Tister's particular skillset.

Ref: Pawnee Republican - Mar 30, 1899, p.4.