I quote this for the sake of refuting it by the evidence of one who, unlike the journalist, understood what he was writing about. The ex-lion king, whose experiences and reminiscences were recorded about the same time in another journal, and who must be admitted to be a competent authority, says, ‘Violence is a mistake;’ and he adds, that he has never known heated irons to be held in readiness, except when lions and lionesses are together at times such as led to the terrific struggle in Sanger’s circus, which has been related in the seventh chapter. The true causes of accidents with lions and tigers are intemperance and violence. ‘It’s the drink,’ says the ex-lion king, ‘that plays the mischief with us fellows. There are plenty of people always ready to treat the daring fellow that plays with the lions as if they were kittens; and so he gets reckless, lets the dangerous animal—on which, if he were sober, he would know he must always keep his eye—get dodging round behind him; he hits a beast in which he ought to know that a blow rouses the sleeping devil; or makes a stagger and goes down, and then they set upon him.’ He expected, he says, to hear of Macarthy’s death from the time when he heard that he had given way to intemperance; and we have seen how a hasty cut with a whip brought the tiger upon Helen Blight.
To this evidence of the ex-lion king I may add what I witnessed about thirty years ago in one of the smaller class of travelling menageries, exhibiting at the time at Mitcham fair. There were no lions or tigers, but four performing leopards, a hyena, a wolf which anticipated the Millennium by lying down with a lamb, and several smaller animals. The showman entered the leopards’ cage, with a light whip in one hand, and a hoop in the other. The animals leaped over the whip, through the hoop, and over the man’s back, exhibiting as much docility throughout the performance as cats or dogs. The whip was used merely as part of the properties. Indeed, since cats can be taught to leap in the same way, without the use of whips or iron bars, why not leopards, which are merely a larger species of the same genus? The showman also entered the cage of the hyena, which fawned upon him after the manner of a dog, and allowed him to open its mouth. The hyena has the reputation of being untameable; but, in addition to this instance to the contrary, and another in Fairgrieve’s menagerie, Bishop Heber had a hyena at Calcutta, which followed him about like a dog.
When Fairgrieve’s collection was sold by auction at Edinburgh in 1872, the lions and tigers excited much attention, and good prices were realized, though in some instances they were not so great as had been expected. Rice, a dealer in animals, whose repository, like Jamrach’s, is in Ratcliff Highway, bought, for £185, the famous lion, Wallace, aged seven years and a half, with which Lorenzo used to represent the story of Androcles. The auctioneer assured those present that the animal was as tame as a lamb, and that he was inclined to enter the cage himself, and perform Androcles ‘for that time only,’ but was afraid of the lion’s gratitude. There were six other lions and three lionesses, five of which were also bought by Rice, at prices varying, according to the age and sex of the animals, from £80 for a full grown lioness, and £90 each for lions a year and a half old, to £140 for full-grown lions, from three to seven years old. A six-year old lion named Hannibal, said to be the largest and handsomest lion in this country, was bought by the proprietors of the Zoological Gardens at Bristol for £270; and his mate, four years old, was bought by Jennison, of the Belle Vue Gardens, Manchester, for 100 guineas. The third lioness realized £80, and the remaining lion, bought by Jamrach, £200.
The magnificent tigress, Tippoo, which used to perform with Lorenzo, was also purchased by Jamrach for £155; and the same enterprising dealer became the possessor of three of the four leopards for £60. As these leopards, two of which were females, were trained performing animals, the sum they realized must be considered extremely low. Another leopardess, advanced in years, realized only 6 guineas. Ferguson, the agent of Van Amburgh, the great American menagerist, secured the spotted hyena for £15; while a performing hyena of the striped variety was knocked down at only three guineas. A polar bear, ‘young, healthy, and lively as a trout,’ as the auctioneer said, was sold for £40, a Thibetian bear for 5 guineas, and a pair of wolves for 2 guineas.
Rice, who was the largest purchaser, became the possessor of the zebra for £50. The Bactrian camels, bought principally for travelling menageries, brought from £14 to £30. The largest male camel, twelve years old, was sold for £19; and another, six months younger, but a foot less in stature, for £14. Of the three females, one, six feet and a half high, and ten years old, brought £30; and another, of the same height, and only half the age of the former, £23. The third, only a year and a half old, and not yet full grown, brought £14. All three were in young. A baby camel, nine weeks old, realized 9 guineas. The male ‘dromedary,’ as it was described in the catalogue, but called by naturalists the Syrian camel, was sold for £30, and the female for 20 guineas. Menagerists restrict the term ‘camel’ to the Bactrian or two-humped variety, and call the one-humped animals dromedaries; but the dromedary, according to naturalists, is a small variety of the Syrian camel, bearing the same relation to the latter as a pony does to a horse. The animals described as dromedaries in the catalogue of Fairgrieve’s collection were, on the contrary, taller than the Bactrian camels.
There was a spirited competition for the two elephants, ending in the female, a musical phenomenon, playing the organ and the harmonium, being bought by Rice for £145; and the noble full-tusked male, rising eight years old, and seven feet six inches in height, being purchased by Jennison for £680. This enormous beast was described as the largest and cleverest performing elephant ever exhibited. In point of fact, he is surpassed in stature, I believe, by the Czar’s elephant, kept at his country residence at Tzarski-Seloe; but that beast’s performances have never gone beyond occasionally killing his keeper, whilst the elephant now in the Belle Vue Gardens, at Manchester, is one of the most docile and intelligent beasts ever exhibited. He will go in harness, and was accustomed to draw the band carriage when a parade was made. He will either drag or push a waggon up a hill, and during the last eighteen months that the menagerie was travelling, he placed all the vans in position, with the assistance only of a couple of men to guide the wheels.
The entire proceeds of the sale were a little under £3,000. The daily cost of the food of the animals in a menagerie is, I may add, far from a trifle. The quantity of hay, cabbages, bread, and boiled rice, sweetened with sugar, which an elephant will consume, in addition to the fruit, buns, and biscuits given to him by visitors, is enormous. The amount of animal food for the carnivora in Fairgrieve’s menagerie was about four hundred-weight a day, consisting chiefly of the shins, hearts, and heads of bullocks. Each lion is said to have consumed twelve pounds of meat every day; but this is more, I believe, than is allowed in the Gardens of the Zoological Society. The appetite of the tiger is almost equal to that of his leonine relative; and all these beasts seem to insist upon having beef for dinner. We hear nothing of hippophagy among lions and tigers in a state of confinement; though, in their native jungles, they eat horse, pig, deer, antelope, sheep, or goat indiscriminately. The bears get meat only in very cold weather; at other seasons, their diet consists of bread, sopped biscuits, and boiled rice.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Circus Slang—Its Peculiarities and Derivation—Certain Phrases used by others of the Amusing Classes—Technicalities of the Circus—The Riders and Clowns of Dickens—Sleary’s Circus—Circus Men and Women in Fiction and in Real Life—Domestic Habits of Circus People—Dress and Manners—The Professional Quarter of the Metropolis.
Circus men are much addicted to the use of slang, and much of their slang is peculiar to themselves. To those who are uninitiated in the mysteries of life among what may be termed the amusing classes, the greater part of their vocabulary would seem an unknown tongue; but a distinction must be made between slang words and phrases and the technical terms used in the profession, and also between the forms of expression peculiar to circus men and those which they use in common with members of the theatrical and musical professions. These distinctions being duly observed, the words and phrases which are peculiar to the ring will be found to be less numerous than might be expected from the abundance of slang with which the conversation of circus artistes seems to be garnished; though it is probable that no man, not even a circus man, could give a complete vocabulary of circus slang, which, like that of other slang-speaking classes, is constantly receiving additions, while words and phrases which have been long in use often become obsolete, and fall into disuse.