Lions 'n' tigers 'n' everything

by Courtney Ryley Cooper

In the first place, the West-Coasters travel for the most part, through warm climates an essential to the health of the average “big monk.” But above all things, there is association.

The great apes are usually purchased in their youth and taken aboard merely as a speculation. An adult ape is worth more than a young one, with the result that the chimpanzee or the orang-outang often becomes an occupant of the ship for several years, becoming the mascot and the friend of every man aboard. He runs the rigging and climbs the masts, he loafs about the forecastle and dances in awkward fashion to the playing of the accordion or the singing of the songs with which the seamen pass their idle hours. He is the pest of the galley, the comedian of the mess room; there have been cases known where the beasts have been taught simple tasks, following the sailors about at their duties and making ludicrous efforts to work also. It is a happy life for these animals; through their imitative natures they learn tricks and comicalities. Above all, they have health and strength, and when full growth does come, the sea captain knows that he is going to gain a heavy return on his investment. With the result that one day, a ship’s mascot goes ashore, ambling past harbor officials who have seen him take the same kind of a trip many times before. But this time he doesn’t return and a circus begins to advertise an addition to its menagerie.

Nor are the simians all which arrive in this fashion. The next time you see a particularly expert boxing kangaroo, inquire into his past. In all probability that “kang” learned his tricks while a laughing crew lolled about the deck of a lumbering freighter for which he formed the mascot and general humorist, while some particularly burly sailor tried his best to outbox him, only to fail.

Outside this, the list of “regulars” which come to cagedom via the tramp steamer, is small. There are other importations, it is true—Little Hip, perhaps the most famous performing baby elephant that ever came to this country, arrived via trampdom, the pet of every sailor on the ship. Now and then members of the cat tribes are brought in also—but this is not a good cargo. When there’s an animal aboard, the sailor likes to be one in which he can exhibit friendliness, and there’s little of the chummy spirit about the lion, the leopard and the tiger. Then too, there is the matter of food; fresh meat in quantities sufficient to feed a three or four hundred-pound cat animal, does not abound upon the tramp steamer. But there are enough exceptions to prove the rule; among them the case of “Nig,” a queer-shapen, mysterious appearing black jaguar which is now a feature with the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus, midnight hued, apparently the most vicious beast in the whole menagerie, continually “fighting” his trainer, Mabel Stark, yet subservient to her with a queer sort of cat-love which amounts almost to worship. For it all there is a reason.

“Nig,” far in his past, was a ship mascot. In his cubhood days, when he was no larger than a house cat, he appeared at a South American port in the arms of a native who had found him in a swamp, saw in him a few pieces of silver and hurried seaward. A tramp steamer lay in port, a captain bargained grumpily for him and “Nig” went aboard, to play about the decks, and to look upon this rolling, tossing ship as home.

The seamen amused themselves with him as one would fondle a housecat. “Nig” was nothing more to them than a big black tabby, and the ship was his to wander at will. But he grew steadily, to surprising proportions, and there came the time when the captain, fearful that he might some day lose his playfulness, began to look about for a purchaser.

The buyer appeared in the person of a South American circus owner and “Nig” went forth to a cage, and to a new life which he did not understand. All his days he had been free—why should he be caged now? And because he was caged, he became fierce; because he was fierce, the unknowing, unskilled menagerie men of the small circus regarded him as a thing to be passed by or merely shunted to one side with a feeding fork; to be cursed, and reviled as a hateful beast. Then a scout for the big American circus saw him and purchased him. They put “Nig” aboard a steamer, bound for America.

With that, “Nig” went wild. A ship to him meant freedom, the association of friendly persons, playmates. He roared and bellowed and tore at his shipping den. Night and day his heavy fore-legs lashed and clawed, his big body pushed and bounded and leaped; gradually the fastenings of the wooden shifting den began to weaken. The crew of the ship became frightened. No one would go near him to feed him. And as the days passed, “Nig” worked at his confines like a convict struggling to escape from prison.

A wireless flashed into New York—for armed men to go to the docks that they might be ready to kill him in case he broke loose during the unloading process. But American circus men are different from those of other countries. The armed men went, but with instructions to do everything possible to save the beast’s life. His future trainer, Mabel Stark, went also. A roomy cage was provided. Out from the hold came the shifting den, weakened in its every fiber, while a loathsome appearing black thing, his head already through a gaping aperture, strove at escape. Down to the docks and a hasty transfer to the big cage. Then the crooning voice of a woman:

“Hello Nig! There, Nig, old boy! You’re all right—you’re among friends! Nice old Nig!”