Earlier still, probably in the fifties, a leopard escaped from its cage. Mrs. Jennison, senior, wife of the founder, happened to be passing, and courageously went into the house, and with her apron ‘shooed’ the animal, as though it had been a hen and chickens, straight back into its cage, where she fastened it up.
In the very early days, when Belle Vue was in the country and our enclosures were less perfect, it was a common thing for the countryside to turn out for a red-deer chase after an escape from the Gardens.
These things do not happen now, as there is a 12-feet high wall all round the 80 acres. A sea-lion did once get as far as the exit, some 300 yards from its cage. When diving from a high platform his impetus gave him his freedom. When that escape was blocked he showed wonderful climbing powers, getting over a barrier 6 feet high by using a corner. However, his keeper stopped him finally, and turned his powers to proper uses by adding the climbing of a pole to his other tricks. He managed 6 feet.
One other incident for a close. Three black-backed jackals (two of which are still alive) were caged at the Longsight end of the Gardens. Their cage-door was left open in October, 1900; they got out, traversed the whole length of the Gardens, and went out by the Lake Hotel exit. They were seen some 200 yards away outside, playing together. They returned towards the Gardens; one was headed off by some boys, the other two entered as they had left (by the exit at the extreme end of the large lake), and, retraversing the Gardens, returned unmolested to their cage. (The third was afterwards caught and returned to the Gardens.) The above is so curious that it is perhaps as well that the event is recent enough to be capable of very full proof.
An extract from the Manchester Guardian of June 1, 1901, will form a fitting termination to this short account of Belle Vue:
‘Of the zoological collection, the pride and boast of Belle Vue, it is only necessary to say that in every department it is kept thoroughly up to date.
‘Mr. John Jennison, the founder of the establishment, could not have dreamed forty years ago of the priceless possession which his modest “Gardens” would eventually become to the city.... We remember saying that the Gardens were the playground of Lancashire. The description needs to be very largely expanded. A pleasure resort which attracts, as Belle Vue does, thousands of visitors from Edinburgh and Glasgow on the north, Yarmouth on the east, and Gloucester, Cardiff, and Swansea on the south and west, has about it something of a metropolitan air. Its votaries, indeed, are not confined to the inhabitants of one hemisphere. We have heard New Yorkers almost regretfully admit that the Empire City had nothing so good to show in the way of a pleasure resort.’
CHAPTER XXXVI
THE GARDENS OF THE ROYAL ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF IRELAND, DUBLIN
This Society was founded on May 10, 1830. On that day a public meeting was held in the Rotunda for this purpose. The Duke of Leinster occupied the chair, and a large and representative gathering was present. The first and most important resolution—viz., ‘That it appears expedient that a society be formed, to be entitled the Zoological Society of Dublin’—was proposed by the Earl of Longford and seconded by the Surgeon-General (Mr. Philip Crampton). The second resolution, which was proposed by the Earl of Howth and seconded by Dr. Whitley Stokes, was worded as follows: ‘That the object of the Society shall be to form a collection of living animals on the plan of the Zoological Society of London.’ Towards the close of the meeting Dr. Jacob intimated that the Lord Lieutenant (the Duke of Northumberland) had arranged to give a portion of the Phœnix Park for the purpose of establishing a Zoological Garden.