from Hoh, p. 204, on the origin of the ‘auguste’ clown: “A second stock circus clown was probably developed in Germany in 1869, by an American clown named Tom Belling. The story goes that Belling was running away from an angry proprietor in the back yard, and stumbled into the ring. Mortified, he tripped over his own coat tails and incoherently blundered off again, to the sound of roars of laughter and cries of ‘August!’ from the approving crowd — a slang term in Berlin for a stupid bumbling fool. And so the ‘auguste’ clown was created. It’s only one story among many claims for the true origin, but it’s as good as any.”
http://iath.virginia.edu/cocoon/circus/xm