Careers of Danger and Daring

by Cleveland Moffett

THE TAMER'S TRIUMPH. READING HIS NEWSPAPER IN THE LION'S CAGE.

In support of this statement that lions are delicate, I remember hearing old John Smith, director of the Central Park Menagerie, set forth a list of lions' ailments, and the coddling and doctoring they require. Lion medicine is usually administered in the food or drink, but there are cases requiring more heroic measures, and then the animal must be bound down before the doctors can treat him. It should be remembered that lions in city menageries are more dangerous than circus lions, since they are either wild ones brought straight from the jungle and never tamed or rebellious ones, anarchist lions that have turned against their tamers, perhaps killed them, and have finally been sold to any zoölogical garden that would take them.

"When we have to rope a lion down to doctor him," said Smith, "we drop nooses through the top bars and catch his four legs, and let down one around his body. Then we haul these fast, and there you are. You can feel his pulse or give him stuff or pull out one of his teeth or anything."

"It must be pretty hard to pull a lion's tooth," I remarked.

"Not very. Here's the forceps I use; you see it isn't very big. This is for the upper jaw, and that other one is for the lower jaw."

I made some remark, meant to be facetious, about not giving lions gas, but the old man took me up sharply. "Certainly we give 'em gas. How else in the world do you think we operate on 'em? They get chloroform same as a person. I have a bag for it that fits over a lion's head, and pulls up tight with a string. In the bag is a sponge saturated with chloroform, and the first you know off goes Mr. Lion into quiet sleep, and you can do what you like with him. But you have to be mighty careful not to give him too much, and look sharp at his heart action, or you'll have a dead lion on your hands. Say, I've found out one thing chloroforming lions that lots of doctors don't know. It's this, that if a lion comes back hard to consciousness after you've put him to sleep, you can help things along by catching hold of his tail and heaving him up on his head. That sends the blood down to his brain, where you want it, and pretty soon you'll see his muscles begin to twitch, and back he comes. I told a doctor about this once, and he said he'd done the very same thing with patients."

Coming again to the need of patience, let me quote my friend "Bill" Newman. "Why," said he, "I've spent weeks and weeks teaching an elephant to ring a bell—just that one thing. You have to sit by him hour after hour, giving him the bell in his trunk and giving it to him again when he drops it, and then again and again for a whole morning, and then for many mornings until he gets the idea and rings it right. It's the same way teaching an elephant to fan himself or teaching tricks to a clown elephant; you have to wait and wait, and never give up. Once an elephant understands what you want he'll do it, but it's awful hard sometimes making 'em understand."

"How do you teach them to stand on their heads and on their hind legs?" I asked.

"With the same kind of patience and with tackle. Just heave 'em up or roll 'em over the way they're supposed to go and then keep at it. Some learn quicker than others. Once in a while you get a mean one, and then look out."

An instance of the affection felt for wild beasts by their tamers is offered in the case of Madame Bianca, the French tamer, who in the winter of 1900 was with the Bostock Wild Animal Show giving daily exhibitions in Baltimore, where her skill and daring with lions and tigers earned wide admiration. It will be remembered how fire descended suddenly on this menagerie one night and destroyed the animals amid fearful scenes. And in the morning Bianca stood in the ruins and looked upon the charred bodies of her pets. Had she lost her dearest friends, she could scarcely have shown deeper grief. She was in despair, and declared that she would never tame another group; she would leave the show business. And when the menagerie was stocked afresh with lions and tigers Bianca would not go near their cages. These were lions indeed, but not her lions, and she shook her head and mourned for "Bowzer," the handsomest lioness in captivity, and "Spitfire," and "Juliette," and the black-maned "Brutus."