LIONS ’N’ TIGERS ’N’ EVERYTHING
By Courtney Ryley Cooper
THE CROSS-CUT
THE WHITE DESERT
UNDER THE BIG TOP
THE LAST FRONTIER
LIONS ’N’ TIGERS ’N’ EVERYTHING
[Illustration: CAGEMATES. _Frontispiece._]
LIONS ’N’ TIGERS
’N’ EVERYTHING
BY
COURTNEY RYLEY COOPER
_ILLUSTRATED FROM
PHOTOGRAPHS_
[Illustration]
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1924
_Copyright, 1922, 1923, 1924_,
BY COURTNEY RYLEY COOPER.
_All rights reserved_
Published August, 1924
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO
CARL BRANDT
WITH THE GENUINE AFFECTION
OF
“THE DEAR OLD RHINOCEROS”
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION xi
CHAPTER
I INSIDE THE TRAINING DEN 1
II TRAMPING IT TO CAGEDOM 40
III CHARACTER IN THE CAGES 55
IV KIDS OF THE CAGES 76
V THE DOG WAGON 109
VI MENAGERIE “PSYCH-STUFF” 145
VII THE ELLYPHANTS ARE COMING-G-G! 163
VIII A HUNDRED TONS OF PRANKISHNESS 191
IX THE KEEPER OF THE BULLS 213
ILLUSTRATIONS
Cagemates _Frontispiece_
PAGE
In the steel arena 6
A tiger being trained to ride horseback 6
Feed a hippopotamus and he’ll do the rest 38
Bon, the baby hippo, for whom a man gave his life 38
Indigestion makes a lion vicious in the arena 58
Never try to do this if the lion has a headache 58
Baby wild cats, and they look their part 64
Representative circus dogs 72
Baby lions are always sought after as pets 82
A pair of real “teddy bears” 82
A sick baby orang-outang 98
A baby camel with its mother, the “dumbbell baby” of
the menagerie 98
Baby Miracle, a few weeks before she decided to leave
this tempestuous world 102
Lion triplets 102
Collies make excellent circus dogs 114
Waiting to enter the big show 114
Young lions in the training den 154
Waiting for mealtime 154
An inbred lion, hence not a good worker 160
Circus men can’t beat these things, so they “jine ’em” 160
An elephant is the easiest to train and the hardest to
handle of any menagerie beast 178
A work elephant waiting for the crowds to leave the
circus grounds, when his labors will begin 178
Spring practice in the yard of winter quarters 192
The elephant turns naturally to clowning 192
In winter quarters 216
In the act of a breakaway 216
Old Mom and her girl friend Freida 222
Kas and Mo when they arrived in America 222
INTRODUCTION
“HURRY! HURRY! TH’ BEEG SHOW IS STARTING-G-G-G-G!”
Of course, you’ve been to the circus. You got there just in time to
hear the sideshow spieler tell you that there was fortay-y-y-y-y-five
minutes for fun an’ amusement beforah th’ beeg show, th’ beeg show,
would begin! Fortay-y-y-y-five minutes in which to view those
stra-a-a-nge people, to see The Cannibal Twins, the Skeleton Dude,
the Fat Lady who has taken everay-y-y-y known method of reducing in
an attempt to rid herself of her half a ton of flesh, but who gets
biggah, biggah and fattah, Ladies-s-s an’ Gents, everay living-g-g
breathing-g-g moment of her life!
You’ve given yourself plenty of time, so you think. You want to see the
menagerie and the lions and tigers and elephants, but the first thing
you know, that sideshow spieler has inveigled you inside the tent and
the next thing you know, somebody with a fog-horn voice is yelling in
your ear:
“Hurry! Hurry Everaybodi-e-e-e-e-e-e! Th’ Beeg Show is
Starting-g-g-g-g!”
Then you have to rush through the menagerie and get into your seat
before you exactly know what’s happened.
Well, it’s about the same way with the beginning of a book. You set
yourself to have a lot of fun seeing the main show, and then somebody
drags you off to a side performance and before you realize it, your
time for reading’s up and all you’ve gotten is a lot of advance
information as to what you’re going to find out if you finish the book.
I suppose I’ve a lot of the boy in me. I hate introductions. Despise
’em. Yet, in a way, they’re necessary. I’ve always wanted to write a
book where I could put the introduction at the end, or something like
that. Because, really, an introduction seems terribly necessary.
But since I couldn’t do that, I waited until I had finished writing
the rest of the book, and then I wrote this, which I am busily trying
to keep from being an introduction. But it seems that there’s no way
out. I might as well break down and confess--that’s what it is. Th’
sideshow, th’ side-show-w-w-w-w, Ladies-s-s-s an’ Gents, th’ sideshow,
while farther on, the main performance band is tuning up for the
grand-d-d entrée!
So, if you’re like me, and detest introductions, just let this part
of the book slide on by and wait until you’ve finished the rest. Then
maybe, some day when you haven’t anything to do, you can come back and
see what I’ve been doing all this talking about. It’s simply this:
I’ve often been asked why a circus carries so many animals around with
it; whether it is merely because it wants to “fill up space” or because
they are cheap or to take up time before the rest of the performance.
It really is none of these. Questions like that hurt a circus man’s
pride. He really thinks a lot of his animals, and he’s terribly proud
of the fact that he carries them around the country, because he knows
that from the fact that he does like animals a great portion of America
gains its knowledge of natural history.
There are comparatively few big zoölogical collections in America and
all these are in the big cities; especially is this true where jungle
animals are exhibited. The rest of the country must depend on the
circus to make possible a close knowledge of the various beasts of
faraway lands--and there is hardly a man or woman in America who was
reared in a rural community who did not gain his or her early studies
in this manner. And that pleases the circus man, because he always
wants to feel that he is something else than merely a purveyor of
amusement. Nor does he do it cheaply!
For instance, the next time the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and
Bailey Circus comes to town, you’ll find in its menagerie a total of
forty-four elephants. A number of them are babies, purchased at an
average price of about $2500 apiece, when all costs are considered.
Half of them are full grown, worth from $5000 to $10,000 each,
according to their performing ability. Lump them all at an average of
$4000 apiece, and you have an investment of $186,000 in elephants, to
say nothing of the food they eat, and of all animals, elephants are the
champion hay eaters.
That’s one item. The four giraffes are another, and in case you should
desire to purchase a first-class giraffe some day, just write out
a check for $15,000 and then trust to good fortune to get you the
animal. Giraffes are scarce. So are hippopotami and rhinoceri and great
apes, to say nothing of pythons, and jungle-bred tigers and lions and
leopards and other animals of their kind. Figuring the interest on the
investment alone, for the number of performance days which are granted
to the circus, it costs nearly $2000 a week to carry that menagerie
around the country. That is the amount the original outlay would earn
if it were invested in the ordinary channels of business. Nor does that
include the items of trainers, of food, of assistants, cage men, dens,
horses for transportation, railroad equipment and repairs, and steam
haulage. So a menagerie really isn’t such a cheap adjunct, is it? Nor
is that all.
A few years ago, John Ringling learned that there was a wonderful
ape in England. He had heard that it was a real gorilla--but didn’t
believe it. He went to England and to the home of the man and woman who
had reared the beast to health from a disease-ridden little thing which
had been landed in London from a tramp steamer. It was a real gorilla,
the first one that ever had thrived in captivity. John Ringling wanted
that animal for his circus. It meant that the people of the United
States would be given an opportunity to study something which neither
the combined efforts of scientists nor the hunting parties of the
animal companies of all the world had been able to give. He didn’t
need the gorilla. The menagerie was full as it was. But there was
the urge of the true circus man--to bring forth the thing which had
not been seen before, to present something new. It meant a gamble of
thousands of dollars. He took the chance. The check read for $30,000.
John Daniel, the gorilla, was brought to the United States--and lived
less than a month! Such are the risks taken by the circus man to keep
his menagerie up to the plane which he desires. This is not the only
instance.
Expeditions have been fostered, men sent away from the United States
for months, even years at a time, to gain some special animal. Perhaps
the expedition is a success. More often it is a failure. But the crowds
which throng through the marquee into the menagerie see nothing but
the gilded cages and the picket line of elephants, giving but little
thought to the effort and expense behind it all. Which worries the
circus man not at all. What he is after is to get people into that
menagerie.
That, in the final analysis, is of course the real reason behind the
menagerie--to help get people into the circus. But in doing that,
a number of other things are accomplished. In the first place, the
rural population is thereby given its knowledge of natural history.
The farmer’s boy and the boy of the city not large enough to support
a zoo get their first sight of the lion, the tiger, the elephant and
giraffe and hippopotamus in a circus menagerie. With that, there comes
the inevitable human attribute of making comparisons--and following
that, study comes easier. It’s much more pleasant to read in the
newspaper about some one you know, than it is to read about some one
wholly abstract. The same is true of animals. After a person has seen
the tigers in a circus, he wants to know more of them. That’s when the
books come in.
Nor is science neglected by the circus. It was due to the importation
of John Daniel by the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey that
the anthropologists of New York were able to dissect a gorilla brain
and carry on their studies through an actual autopsy upon a specimen
of an animal group which has been almost as mysterious as the fabled
Dodo. The same thing was true with a giant animal called Casey, which
was imported several years ago from Cape Lopez, Africa, by way of
Australia, by a man named Fox. The animal was a mystery, and it still
is a mystery. It looked like a chimpanzee, yet had characteristics and
size which marked it as different from any other chimpanzee which ever
had come to this country. It also had gorilla characteristics, yet it
was not a gorilla. It died on an operating table in Tampa, Florida, of
acute appendicitis, and following its death an autopsy was performed,
showing surprising indications. For one thing, the speech centers of
the brain displayed remarkable development, giving the hint that had
the animal lived, there might have come the time when it would have
been able to speak with the articulation of a low order of humanity.
Other developments showed a close relationship to the human brain--at
least a tendency in that direction. Had the circus which exhibited it
known all that beforehand, it might have advertised it as the missing
link. But the circus didn’t, which was perhaps just as well.
However, one thing remains--Casey was a mystery, and to the circus
world belongs the credit of bringing into general knowledge an animal
which hinted, at least, of a strange race of ground apes which may yet
be discovered in Africa, showing a development different from that of
the chimpanzee and of the gorilla, yet combining both, and aiding the
scientists in their researches into the beginnings of man. That Casey
was a certain type of chimpanzee was, of course, true. But what type?
And what gave him his peculiar, closely human countenance? And his
great size? He was nearly twice as large as his friend and companion
Biz, an ordinary chimpanzee, and one saw in them the dissimilarity that
one notices between two widely different races of men. If Casey could
only have explained!
Some day another Casey may come to America. And another following that.
Circus men will bring them when they come, and the investigations which
follow may cause many a surprising result.
And by the way, the next time you go to the circus, just try an
experiment and see how much more real amusement and interest you get
out of looking at the animals. Try a new viewpoint. Just remember that
we are all animals; we all belong to the same kingdom. With that in
mind, experiment with the idea of looking at those animals not as just
so many mere brutes, but as merely a different branch of the animal
kingdom to which you belong. Look upon them as foreigners, as visitors
to your land from a different shore, strange but willing to learn, and
with far greater perceptive powers, perhaps, than we have.
As I have mentioned before, the human race is egotistical. It likes to
believe that it knows everything. But a close study of animals will
reveal that perhaps they can teach us things, and that, in their way,
they may have every bit as much sense as we have. A dog, you know, can
understand his master’s slightest whim and mood. But few indeed are the
masters who can understand their dogs!
THE AUTHOR
LIONS ’N’ TIGERS ’N’ EVERYTHING
CHAPTER I
INSIDE THE TRAINING DEN
I remember, rather distinctly, the first time I ever went into the
steel arena. I was to meet three lions and an equal number of tigers,
all full grown, and unintroduced, so far, to any one but their original
trainer. Naturally, I believed I knew beforehand just about what would
happen.
Outside the arena, on one side, would be three or four men with long
iron rods, the points of which were heated white hot,--sufficient to
halt any beast in the attack. On the other side would be an equal
number of attendants, equipped with an invention which I never had
seen, but which I knew all about, a thing called an “electric prod
rod,” coupled up with the electric light wires and capable of spitting
thousands of volts of electricity at the lion or tiger which might seek
to devour me. I, personally, would have two revolvers, one loaded with
blank cartridges, for use during the ordinary course of the visit and
to cow the beasts into a knowledge that I was their superior; the other
equipped with steel-jacketed bullets in case of a real emergency.
There was a certain amount of foundation for my beliefs. Back in
childhood days, when I had been a runaway clown with a small,
tatterdemalion circus, the menagerie had consisted of one lion, vicious
to the extreme and permanently blinded by blows from a leaden-tipped
whip, and three scarred and scurvy-appearing leopards which hated
humans with enthusiastic passion, and which eventually accomplished
their much desired ambition of killing the trainer who had beaten them
daily for years. From that menagerie experience I knew that all animals
were beaten unmercifully, that they were burned and tortured and shot,
and that the training of any jungle animal could be carried out in only
one way--that of breaking the spirit of the beast and holding it in a
constant subjection of fear. But--
Only one man was in the menagerie house of the circus winter quarters
when I entered--the trainer. The steel arena stood, already erected, in
the center of the big building, but I looked in vain for the attendants
with the electric prod rods, and the men with the white-hot irons. As
for the trainer himself, I failed to notice any bulges in his pockets
which might denote revolvers; in fact, he carried nothing except two
cheap, innocent-appearing buggy whips. One of these he handed me in
nonchalant style, then motioned toward the arena.
“All right,” he ordered, pulling back the steel door, “get in.”
“Get in?” Everything was all wrong, and I knew it. “Where are the
animal men?”
“Over at the cookhouse, eating dinner. I’ll let the cats into the
chute. Go ahead inside so I can strap the door.”
“But--”
“I’ll come in after I’ve let the cats through from the permanent cages.
I want you in there first, though, so they can see you the minute they
start into the chute. Then you won’t surprise ’em, see, and scare ’em.
Just stand still in the center as they come in. If any of ’em get
excited, just say ‘seats!’ in a good, strong voice, and tap ’em with
that buggy whip. By that time I’ll be in there.”
“But where’s my gun? And aren’t we going to have any of the men around
with hot irons or electric prods--”
“Electric what?” The trainer cocked his head.
“Electric prod rods--you know, that throw electricity.”
“Cut the comedy,” came briefly; “you’ve been readin’ them Fred Fearnot
stories! Nope,” he continued, “there ain’t going to be any hot irons or
electric prods, whatever they are, or nothin’. Just you an’ me an’ the
cats an’ a couple of buggy whips!”
Whereupon, somewhat dazed, I allowed myself to be shunted into the
arena. The door was closed behind me--and strapped. Shorty, the animal
trainer went to the line of permanent cages, shifted a few doors, then
opened the one leading to the chute. A tiger traveled slowly toward me,
while I juggled myself in my shoes, and wondered why the buggy whip
had suddenly become so slippery in my clenched hand. While this was
happening, the Bengal looked me over, dismissed me with a mild hiss,
and walked to the pedestal. Then, almost before I knew it, the den
was occupied by three tigers and three lions, none of which had done
anything more than greet me with a perfunctory hiss as they entered!
Already Shorty was unstrapping the door, himself to enter the den.
Then, one by one, the animals went through their routine, roaring and
bellowing and clawing at Shorty, but paying no attention whatever to me!
“Part of the act,” explained the little trainer as he came beside me
for a moment, “trained ’em that way. Audience likes to see cats act
vicious, like they was going to eat up their trainer. But a lot of it’s
bunk. Just for instance--”
Then he turned to the lion which had fought him the hardest.
“Meo-w-w-w-w-w-w-w!” he said.
“Meo-w-w-w-w-w-w-w!” answered the lion, somewhat after the fashion of
an overgrown house cat.
Following which, a loose purring issued from Shorty’s lips, to be
echoed by the tigers.
“That’s their pay!” came laconically as the trainer walked to the
chute. Then, “All right, Kids! Work’s over!”
Whereupon the great cats bounded through the doors for their permanent
cages again, and still somewhat hazy, I left the steel arena.
Everything had gone wrong! There had been no firing of a revolver, no
lashing of steel-tipped whips; something radical had happened since the
old days when Pop Jensen had beaten those three leopards about on the
Old Clattertrap Shows. Either that or Pop Jensen had been an exception!
Since that first introduction, I’ve learned a few things about animals.
A great many of these little facts have been gained by personal visits,
often in as narrow a space as an eight-foot permanent cage in which
the other occupant was anything from a leopard to a lion. And I’ve
learned incidentally that Pop Jensen wasn’t an exception. He just
belonged to another day, that is all, and his day is past. The animal
trainer of the present is a different sort, with a different attitude
toward the beasts under his control, different theories, different
methods, and different ideas. Ask a present-day trainer about hot
irons and all you’ll gain is a blank look. He wouldn’t know how to
use them, and if he did, he wouldn’t admit it. He wants to hold his
job, and with present-day circuses; hot irons or anything like them
are barred. All for one very simple reason besides the humanitarian
qualities. Jungle animals cost about eight times as much to-day as they
did twenty or twenty-five years ago. No circus owner is going to mar a
thousand-dollar bill if he can help it--and hot irons produce scars.
Which represents the business side of animal training as it exists
to-day. There are two reasons; one being that the whole fabric of
the circus business had changed in the last score of years from the
low-browed “grifting” owner and his “grifting,” thieving, fighting
personnel to a new generation of men who have higher ideals and who
have realized that the circus is as much of an institution as a
dry-goods store or the post-office department.
[Illustration: IN THE STEEL ARENA.]
[Illustration: A TIGER BEING TRAINED TO RIDE HORSEBACK.]
Where the canvasmen and “roughnecks” and “razorbacks,” the laborers of
the circus, once were forced to sleep beneath the wagons, or at best
upon makeshift bunks, they now have sanitary berths, car porters, and
sheets and pillow cases. Where they once ate the left-overs of stores;
stale bread, old meat, and “puffed” canned goods, they now have food
that is far better than that served in the United States Army. Where
they formerly were the victims of hundred per cent. loan sharks,
feeding upon them like so many human leeches; forcing them to pay
double prices for every commodity and bit of clothing, and practically
at the mercy of brutal bosses, their lot has been bettered until there
is now at least one circus where the lot superintendent never allows
his men to be commanded without a prefix unknown in a great many
business institutions. He doesn’t swear at them, for instance, when he
orders the tents strengthened against a possible blow. Instead, it is:
“All right, _gentlemen_, take up them guy ropes!”
When the weather is foul, and the circus lot is hip-deep in mud, when
men have struggled to their utmost and can go no longer on their own
power, he doesn’t brace them with bootleg whisky. Instead, he keeps
a man on the pay roll whose job is to laugh and sing in such times
as this--the superintendent knowing full well that one laugh begets
another, that singing engenders singing, and that the psychological
value of that laughing man is worth barrels of booze. It has saved the
show more times than one!
Just as conditions have improved with the human personnel of the
circus, so have they progressed in the menagerie. The circus animal
trainer of to-day is not chosen for his brutality, or his cunning, or
his so-called bravery. He is hired because he has studied and knows
animals--even to talking their various “languages!” There are few
real animal trainers who cannot gain an answer from their charges,
talking to them as the ordinary person talks to a dog and receiving
as intelligent attention. It is by this method that cat animals are
trained for the most part, it being about the only way, outside of
catnip, in which they can be rewarded.
In that last word comes the whole explanation of the theory of
present-day animal training, a theory of rewards. Animal men have
learned that the brute isn’t any different from the human; the surest
way to make him work is to pay him for his trouble. In the steel arena
to-day, the same fundamentals exist as in any big factory, or business
house, or office. The animals are just so many hired hands. When they
do their work, they get their pay envelope--and they know it. Beyond
this lies, however, another fundamental principle, by which in the
last score or so of years the whole animal-training system has been
revolutionized. The present-day trainer doesn’t cow the animal or
make it afraid of him. On the contrary, the first thing he does is to
conquer all fear and make friends with the beast!
A study of jungle animals has taught him that they exist through fear;
that the elephant fears, and therefore hates the chimpanzee, the
gorilla and any other member of the big ape tribes that can attack
from above, and therefore, simply through instinct, will kill any of
these beasts at the first opportunity. In like manner does the hyena
or the zebra fear the lion, the tiger fear the elephant, the leopard
fear the python. It has taken little deduction to find that with this
fear, hatred is inevitably linked, and that if an animal fears a
trainer, it also hates him and will “get” him at the first opportunity.
Therefore, the first thing to be eliminated is not fear on the part of
the trainer, but on the part of the animal! I am no animal trainer.
Yet, as I say, I’ve occupied some mighty close quarters with every form
of jungle beast. Nor was it bravery. It was simply because I knew the
great cats wouldn’t be afraid of me, and that, having nothing to fear,
they would simply ignore me. Which happened.
Perhaps the best example of the change in training tactics lies in the
story of a soft-hearted, millionaire circus owner who is somewhat of
a crank about his animals being well treated. One day, several years
ago, we happened to be together at a vaudeville theater, in which an
old-time trainer was exhibiting a supposed “trained” monkey band. The
audience seemed to enjoy the affair; but there were two who didn’t. All
for the reason that we could see the cruelty of it.
The unfortunate monkeys were tied to their chairs. To their arms were
attached invisible piano wires which ran to a succession of pulleys
above and thence to the wings, where they were pulled and jerked by an
assistant to create the illusion that the beasts were obeying commands.
By an elaborate network of wires, the monkeys were made to raise horns,
which also were tied to their hands, and apparently play them. Time
after time, as he watched, the circus owner snorted his displeasure,
and, at last, the act finished, rose from his chair and sought the
stage entrance.
“Swell act you got!” he announced to the owner. “What do you want for
it? You know, I own a circus; I’d kind of like to have that layout in
the kid show.”
It was the beginning of a series of bickerings, which ended in the
purchase of the act--why, I could not quite understand. So I asked the
reason. The eccentric little owner waved a hand.
“Going to have it in my show.”
“But with those wires--that’s torture, Boss!”
“Now, nix, Kid! Nix. Wait till I’ve got my bill of sale.”
Incidentally, when he received that, the new owner of the monkey band
gave to the old-time trainer a tongue lashing as artistic as anything
I ever heard, a little masterpiece on cruelty, on the cowardice of the
human, and on decency in general. Following which, he bundled up his
newly purchased monkeys, together with the properties which went with
the act, and took them to winter quarters.
The next day I went out there with him. The monkeys were in their
chairs, apparently waiting for something exceedingly important. No
wires were visible. At a signal, an attendant ran forward with a small
table, upon which were heaped the band instruments which at one time
had represented so much torture to the little prisoners. Instantly
there was chattering and excitement. The simians leaped from their
chairs, scrambled toward the table, grasped a band instrument apiece
and ran back to their places, each holding the musical apparatus tight
to his lips and producing faint sounds that bore the resemblance of
music! Yet the cruelty was gone! The wires had vanished! The monkeys
were doing all this of their own accord and actually taking a delight
in it! Like a pleased boy, the little circus owner walked to one of the
simians and, against the monkey’s squealing protests, took away his
horn.
“There,” he said, with a shrug of his shoulders, “that’s all you have
to do.”
The mouthpiece of the horn had been refashioned overnight. Extending
slightly outward from the interior was a metal standard bearing a thin
reed; which would sound at the slightest suction, while just beyond
this, at a point which would necessitate some effort on the part of the
monkey to reach it, was an ordinary piece of old-fashioned, striped
stick candy! When the monkey sucked on the candy, the reed sounded. By
such a simple method had cruelty been changed to pleasure!
The same thing holds true for practically every other animal act.
Instead of making animals pretend to work because they are afraid, they
merely work for wages now. For years, in the old days, trainers had
kicked and mauled and beaten a slow-thinking, lunk-headed hippopotamus
in an effort to make him perform. It was impossible. The hip neither
fought nor obeyed. It didn’t have enough sense to know that it could
escape punishment by doing a few tricks. Then, with the coming of the
newer régime into the circus business, the effort was discontinued. For
years the big river hog merely wallowed in his trough. Then, one day,
an animal trainer slanted his head and stood for a long time in thought.
“Believe I’ll work that hip,” he announced. And a week later, the
miracle happened!
“Ladies-s-s-s-s-s and gentlemen-n-n-n” came the bawling outcry of
the official announcer, “I take great pleasuah in announcing to you
a featuah not on the program, a race between a swift-footed human
being-g-g-g and a real, living, breathing hippopotamus-s-s, or sweating
be-hemoth of Holy Writ. Wa-a-a-tch them!”
Into the hippodrome track from the menagerie connection came the
trainer, running at a fair gait, while striving his best, seemingly,
to outpace him, was a goggle-eyed hippopotamus, trotting as swiftly
as his wobbly avoirdupois would permit. All the way around they went,
the hippopotamus gaining for an instant, then the trainer taking the
lead again, finally passing once more into the menagerie. The audience
applauded delightedly. It was the first time it ever had seen a trained
hippopotamus. Nor had it noticed the fact that, about fifty yards in
advance of the racing pair, was a menagerie attendant, also running.
The important thing about this person was that he carried a bucket of
bran mash, and the hippopotamus knew that it was for him! He wasn’t
racing the trainer, he was merely following a good meal; the old, old
story of the donkey and the ear of corn!
Likewise the pig which you’ve seen squealing in the wake of the clown
in the circus. The secret? Simply that His Hoglets has been taken from
his mother at birth and raised on a bottle. His feeding has been timed
so that it comes during circus hours. The pig follows the clown because
he knows he’s going to get a square meal. At certain places in the
circuit of the big top the clown pauses and gives him a few nips from
the bottle. Then he goes on again and the pig runs squealing after.
Simple, isn’t it?
In the same manner is the “follow goose” trained. The person he trails
has food, and the goose knows he’s going to get it. Likewise the pigs
which you’ve seen “shooting the chutes.”
A pig isn’t supposed to have much intelligence. Perhaps he hasn’t--but
you can have a trained-pig act all your own very easily.
Simply build a pen leading to a set of stairs which lead in turn to a
chute, the chute traveling down into another closely netted enclosure.
In this enclosure put a bucket of favorite pig food. Then turn the hogs
loose and let then make their own deductions.
First of all, the pigs will try to reach the food by going through the
netting. That’s impossible. So at last they turn to the runway, go up
the steps, hesitate a long while, then finally slide down the chute and
get what they’re after. Then--here’s the strange part of it: after a
week or so, remove the food. The pigs will keep on shooting the chutes
just the same. By some strange form of animal reasoning, the pleasure
of food has become associated with that exercise of sliding down that
incline. Like a dog that gains a form of stomachic satisfaction from
the sight of food, so do the pigs derive a certain amount of pleasure
from going where the food ought to be! And they’ll shoot the chutes
for you as often as you please. Particularly if you feed them directly
after it’s done!
In fact, the system of rewards and payment for work holds true through
every form of trained animal life. Sugar for dogs, carrots for
elephants, fish for seals, stale bread for the polar bears, a bit of
honey or candy for the ordinary species of bear, pieces of apple or
lumps of sugar for horses; every animal has his reward, for which he’ll
work a hundred times harder than ever he did in the old and almost
obsolete days of fear. Even lions, tigers and leopards have their
likes, but with them the payment comes in a different fashion.
Jungle cats are primeval in their instincts. They’re unable to control
themselves at the sight of food, and a few strips of meat distributed
in the training den might lead to a fight. Therefore the new style of
trainer has a different method. He talks to the cats!
Nor is that so difficult as it sounds. A short association with animals
and one easily can learn the particular intonation by which they
express pleasure. With the lion, this takes form in a long drawn-out
meow of satisfaction; with the leopard and the tiger it is evinced by
purring, as with house cats. The trainer simply practices an imitation
of these sounds until he masters them, with the result that he is
almost invariably answered by the beast when he emits them! The animal
seems to understand that the trainer is seeking to convey the fact that
he is pleased, and the beast appears pleased also. As to the reward
extraordinary, there is the joy of joys--catnip!
To a house cat, catnip is a thing of ecstasy. To a jungle cat it holds
as much allurement as morphine to a dope user, or whisky to a drunkard.
A catnip ball and the world immediately becomes rosy; the great cats
roll in it, toss it about their cages, purr and arch their backs, all
in a perfect frenzy of delight. Therefore, when they do their work,
they get their catnip. When they don’t work they’re simply docked their
week’s wages; that’s all.
Old principles, naturally, and perhaps all the more efficacious for
their age. In fact, there is one circus in the West which regularly
depends upon this age-worn idea of food to save itself in wet weather.
It possesses one of the largest and strongest elephants existent in the
United States, an animal capable of pulling any of the show’s wagons
from hub-deep mud with but little effort. There is only one trouble.
When Nature made that elephant, it put concrete where the brains should
be. Training is next to impossible. The elephant simply doesn’t seem
able to assimilate a command. Which worries the circus not at all.
When bad weather comes, they simply bring out “Old Bonehead” and hitch
him with a rope harness to whichever wagon happens to be stuck. Then
a workman takes his position slightly in front of the beast, with a
bucketful of carrots, and practices a little animal Coueism. He holds
out a carrot. The elephant reaches for it but can’t quite achieve his
object. Whereupon he takes a step forward--and drags the wagon with
him. Which forms the end of that particular vehicle’s troubles. He is
unhitched and taken to the next scene of difficulty. For every wagon a
carrot, and the circus counts it rather cheap motive power at that!
However, the training of animals does not mean that they’re simply
given food, in return for which, by some magical process, they realize
that they are to do certain work. Far from it. It is a long, patient
progress, in which the trainer, if he is a good one, grits his teeth
to hold his temper and smiles many and many a time when he would
like to swear. He has three jobs which must be synchronized into one
objective--to teach the animal that there is nothing to fear from this
strange human who has suddenly made his entry into the beast’s life,
to plant certain routines into the beast’s mind, and to place there at
the same time the knowledge that, for doing these things, the animal
is to be rewarded. But there is this consolation: once a single trick
is learned, the whole avenue is unlocked; and the way to other stunts
made easier. Here and here alone is the whip used, but for the most
part it is only the light, cheap affair which once adorned that ancient
vehicle, the buggy.
The lessons start in much the same manner in which those of a human
child begin; the primary object being to accustom the charges to the
fact that they are going to school. And so the lion tamer merely takes
his position in the center of the arena and calls for the attendants to
release the animals from their permanent cages.
Often the lesson consists of nothing more than that. The beasts have
become accustomed to mankind through seeing them every day in the
menagerie and through being fed by them. Therefore they catalogue them
as merely other animals which are harmless and upon which the beasts
themselves depend for a livelihood. Again is the road to the brain
opened through the path to the stomach!
However, there also are times when the cats seem to realize that they
no longer are protected by intervening bars, and the old instincts of
fright and self-preservation overcome them. One by one they attempt
to rush their trainer. The answer is a swift, accurately placed blow
of the whip, usually on the nostrils. In force it corresponds to
a sharp slap on the lips, such as happens to more than one child,
stinging it for the moment and causing it to recoil. Unless the beast
is intractable, an inbred or a “bad actor,” about two of these blows
are sufficient to teach the animal its first combined lesson: that a
whip hurts, that the man in the arena commands that whip but, most
important of all, he uses it only as a means of self-protection. The
good trainer only strikes an animal to break up an attack; he has a
specified task, to make the beast respect the whip, but not to fear it.
After the first few minutes, the trainer can sit down in the center of
the arena and wait in peace. His charges have ceased attacking and now
are merely roaming the big enclosure, accustoming themselves to the
larger space of their quarters and assuring themselves that they have
nothing to fear. So ends the first lesson.
After which comes the second and most important period of all. The
animal already has learned three things, that the trainer will not
hurt him unless the animal tries to hurt the trainer, that the whip
is something that can sting and it is best to keep away from it, and
that there will be a reward for doing what the trainer desires, and
that, taken all in all, he’s a pretty good sort of a being after all.
Therefore, the trainer selects one beast at a time and falls into a
routine. He cracks his whip just behind the beast, not striking the
animal, but close enough to make his charge move away from it. At the
same time, he keeps repeating his rote:
“Seats, Rajah! Seats--seats!”
Which the beast doesn’t understand at all. But by “crowding,” by the
constant repetition of that command, and by desisting with the whip
when the animal moves in the right direction and cracking it to hold
him from the wrong course, the trainer gradually works the cat to its
pedestal. Once this lesson is implanted in the mind of the beast,
the whole door to a trained act is unlocked, for everything else is
accomplished in the same manner.
More than once I have happened into a menagerie house to find the arena
full of cat animals and a trainer seemingly nowhere about. The animals
were doing as they pleased, some lolling in the spots of sunlight which
came from the high windows, others playing, still others merely pacing.
It was as though a recess had been called at school and the teacher had
departed. Instead, however, he was hiding!
Hiding and watching the animals with hawk-like eagerness, as, left to
themselves, they followed the dictates of their own likes and dislikes.
It was not a recess; on the contrary, it was one of the most important
features of present-day animal training, that of allowing the animals
themselves to choose their own acts! In other words, the trainer was
playing the part of a hidden observer, watching his tawny charges, and
from his unseen point of vantage learning their true natures and the
things which they liked best to do.
Some animals are natural climbers and balancers; others are not. Weeks
could be wasted in an effort to teach a beast to walk a tightrope,
for instance, when the power of balance simply was not in his brain.
So the trainer of to-day, being a believer in efficiency, allows his
animals to volunteer for the various services of the performing arena.
During the recess time, in which the animals are left to their own
resources, their every mannerism is catalogued. In their play, for
instance, it may be found that two lions or two tigers will box each
other in mock fighting; two pals of the feline race that have selected
each other as playmates. Naturally, there is fierce growling and a
sprinkling of flying fur. The trainer notes it all, and when the show
goes on the road, the audience gets a thrill out of two great cats
which leap at each other in a seeming battle of death. For the trainer
has taken advantage of this play instinct and made it a part of the
show. The audience doesn’t know that the big beasts are growling and
hissing in good humor, and wouldn’t believe it if the trainer announced
the fact.
Another animal will be found to have a love for climbing and for
balancing himself about the thin rails of the arena. This is the beast
which is turned into the “tightrope walking tiger” or the “Leonine
Blondin.” Another will be a humorist, cavorting about in comical
fashion, and he becomes the “only-y-y-y, living-g-g-g, breathing-g-g-g
cat clown in existence.” In fact, the animal trainer has learned
one great truth, that animals have tempers, likes, dislikes, moods,
frailties and mannerisms just as a human has them, and that the
easiest way to present a pleasing act is to take advantage of the
natural “histrionic talent” of the beast. For instance, on one of the
big shows was an “untamable lion.” At the very sight of the trainer,
he would hiss and claw and roar and appear obsessed with a mad desire
to eat that trainer alive at the first opportunity. His act was a
constant thing of cracking whips, of shouts, of barking revolver shots,
and of scurrying attendants outside the arena, on the alert every
instant for the leap of death. Old Duke, to tell the truth, seemed one
of the fiercest beasts that ever went into a steel arena. His every
mannerism carried the hint of death; he hated humans; you could see the
malevolent glare in his eyes, the deadly threat of naked teeth, the--
By the way, did you ever play with a dog that mocked fierceness? A dog
that growled and barked and pretended every moment that he was going to
take off an arm or a leg, while you, in turn, pretended just as hard
as that you were fighting for your very life? Of course, I shouldn’t
reveal circus secrets, but I once spent half an hour with Old Duke in a
cage so small that he slapped me in the face with his tail every time
he turned round, and I didn’t even have the customary buggy whip!
The explanation is simply the fact that it was discovered early in
Duke’s training days that he was an animal humorist. Pompous appearing,
dignified in mien, yet possessed with a funny streak, which the trainer
soon recognized and realized, Old Duke played his rôle so excellently
that upon his death a short time ago, a large newspaper published an
editorial regarding him, and the laugh that he, the lion, had on the
“smart” human beings who had watched him!
“If Old Duke only had possessed a sleeve,” said the editorial, “he
would have placed many a snicker in it during his long and useful show
days. For Duke had a mission, that of showing at least a few persons
who really understood him and who knew, that we who call ourselves
humans are only super-egoists, that because we can talk, and build
edifices and go scurrying about this ant hill we call life, we think
we are the only beings existent who possess a brain. That was Duke’s
mission, to prove, after all, that we are only wonderful because we
think we are wonderful, that we believe animals are soulless things
because we do not understand them. No doubt there are many Old Dukes
in the animal kingdom, supposedly our inferiors, that go through life
tickling our egoism, and quietly, to themselves, giving us the laugh!”
In the old days of animal training, Duke would have been just a lion
doing routine things, because the trainers of those days didn’t know
enough to realize that animals might possess individuality. But those
days are gone. It is a different deal now; far more acts are suggested
by the animals themselves than by any trainer. The man in circus demand
is the person who knows enough to stand at one side and watch, then
take advantage of what he has seen.
Which explains perhaps a sight many circus-goers have noticed--of
a herd of young elephants romping in the mud of a show-lot, and an
interested group of men standing at one side, cataloguing every
move. Mud makes elephants actors. From a beginning of mud and rain
come the balance artists of the elephant herd, the dancers, the
“hootchie-kootchie” experts, and the comedians. All for the reason that
mud to an elephant is like catnip to a lion or tiger. It is part of an
elephant herd’s routine of health to send it forth into the mire and
rain of a “wet lot” and let the members play like so many tremendous
puppies. And while they play, the trainer observes.
No two do the same thing in the same way; the individuality is as
marked as in the members of any human kindergarten class. The trainer
therefore has simply to pick his “bulls” for the various things he
wants them to do when they have graduated into performers, one to walk
upon his hind legs, another to dance in the ring as he danced in the
happiness of sticky mud, one more to sit on still another’s head, and
so on throughout the routine. There is hardly an elephant act that
has not been first done voluntarily at some time in the antics of a
play-fest in the mud.
However, after learning an elephant’s aptitudes comes the real job,
that of making him know that he is to do these tricks as a part of his
livelihood, and to recognize them by cues. An elephant doesn’t measure
his weight by pounds; he runs to tons, and to teach him the rudiments
of his life-work under canvass is a matter of everything from blocks
and tackle to lifting-cranes.
Combined with one ultra-essential point: the elimination of pain.
There is no braver beast than an elephant, and no greater coward; no
better friend and no worse enemy. Injure an elephant when he is a baby,
combine the thought of pain with the idea of work, and some day it all
will come back in a furious, thundering engine of destruction that not
only wrecks the circus, but signs his own death warrant. Bad elephants
must be killed; and when that happens a circus checks off anything from
$4000 to $10,000 on the wrong side of the ledger.
Therefore, the early training of a pachyderm is a delicate affair.
First of all, the student is led to the “class-room” accompanied by
an older and more experienced “bull.” Then, while the new applicant
for performing honors watches, the older elephant is padded about the
legs and tied; following which the blocks and tackles are pulled taut,
causing the beast to lose its balance and fall on its side, the trainer
meanwhile repeating and re-repeating the “lay-down” command. At the end
of which the performer is allowed to rise and is given a carrot. Time
after time is this done, while the student watches--especially that
part where the feeding comes in. It all has its purpose--to attempt to
fix in the new performer’s mind the fact that, in the first place, this
schooling won’t hurt, and secondly that all a “bull” has to do to earn
a nice, fresh carrot is to have a couple of ropes hooked to his legs
and be pulled over on his side. So quick is the intelligence of some
elephants that instances have been known of the beasts learning their
primary lesson on the first attempt. Others, hampered by fear, have
required a month.
In the same way is every other rudimentary trick taught. The elephant
is shown how to stand on his head by having his trunk pulled under
him and his hind legs raised. After which he receives carrots. The
reverse system is used for teaching him “the hind-leg stand”--and
again the carrots appear. After this, the block and tackle is not a
necessity except as a means of support, while hitherto unused muscles
are strengthened. The animal has learned his alphabet; now it is simply
a matter of putting the letters together, the words themselves being
furnished largely by his own antics.
Incidentally, this new order of things in the training field has led
to a different relationship between the man and the beast. There was
a time when animals were only animals, to be taken from their cages,
pushed through their tricks, then shunted back into their cages and
forgotten. Things are different now. The average menagerie has become
more of an animal hotel, with conveniences. The superintendent must
be a person who has studied not only the beasts themselves, but their
anatomy, in other words, a jungle veterinarian.
The boss of the circus menagerie of to-day doesn’t merely content
himself with seeing that his charges are well fed. By a glance at the
coat of a lion or tiger he can tell whether that beast has indigestion;
ventilation is watched carefully to dispel the ammonia smell of the
cat animals and thereby prevent headaches on the part of the beasts;
teeth are pulled, ingrown toenails doctored, operations performed, and
every disease from rickets to pneumonia treated and cured. And the
fact that man at last has learned that beasts possess temperaments,
individuality, emotions and a good many things that humans brag about
has seemed to place them on a different plane. Where there once was
cruelty there now is often affection, both on the part of the trainer,
and also on that of the animal!
In the Al G. Barnes Circus, in California, for instance, is a great,
sleek-muscled, four hundred-pound tiger, that is ever watching,
watching, his eyes constantly on the crowds about his den, seeking but
one person. At the sight of any blond-haired woman, he rises excitedly,
hurries close to the bars, growling in gruff, yet pleased fashion.
Then, with a second look, he turns and slumps to the floor again. It is
not the person he seeks!
That tiger is a killer. He has murdered four other cat animals, two
lions and two tigers, yet if the woman he awaits should appear, she
could tie a cord string about his neck and lead him around the tent in
perfect safety.
He is one of the few wrestling tigers in captivity. Twice a day for
two years, in the steel arena, his claws unguarded, his great jaws
unmuzzled, this four hundred-pound Bengal wrestled in almost human
fashion with Mabel Stark, the woman who had raised him from cubhood,
and whom he loved with a genuine affection. Once, in a motion picture,
when it was necessary for the “double” of the heroine to appear as
though she were almost killed by a tiger, Mabel Stark took the job.
The tiger leaped and knocked her down. Then, while the cameras ground,
he seemingly crushed her skull in his giant jaws. Yet those who
watched saw that those jaws were closed so carefully, in spite of the
swiftness of their action, that they barely dishevelled the trainer’s
hair.
There came the time when Mabel Stark was called away to become one
of the featured trainers for the combined Ringling Brothers-Barnum
and Bailey Circus, the biggest circus of them all. Mabel Stark is far
better known to-day than she was back in the days with Al G. Barnes.
But with the circus she left behind, that tiger still watches, still
waits and seeks constantly for one woman out of the crowds which daily
throng through the menagerie, rising with hope, then dropping forlornly
again to the floor, while, in the midst of her greater fame, Mabel
Stark smiles and sighs, and talks of how wonderful it would be if she
could only have her wrestling tiger!
It’s only one instance of hundreds. Up in Bridgeport, Connecticut, at
the winter quarters of the Barnum show, lives Captain “Dutch” Ricardo,
“the man of a thousand scars.” There was a time when they called
“Cap” the biggest fool in the animal business--for “Cap” was one of
the pioneers of the newer methods of animal training. It was he, for
instance, who once walked into the office of H. H. Tammen, then owner
of the Sells-Floto Circus, and made him a proposition.
“I understand,” he said, “that you’ve got a bunch of bad cats. Been
beaten, ain’t they?”
“Yep,” came the answer. “Just about ruined too. That idiot I had got
’em so flighty they’ll kill anybody that goes into the arena with ’em.”
“I’ll fix ’em up for you,” announced “Cap,” laconically. “Say the word
and I’ll go out there and start in on ’em.”
The circus owner swallowed quickly then reached for a liability
contract.
“Er--just sign this first,” he announced, and “Cap” signed, releasing
the circus from any possible damages for his death. Then together they
went to winter quarters, Ricardo to make his first effort at training,
Tammen to see a new trainer get killed.
“Want any help?” he asked.
“Nope--just two kitchen chairs.”
“Kitchen chairs? What for?”
“To train ’em with.”
Whereupon “Cap” got his chairs and a buggy whip. Then he ordered one
lion into the arena, where he awaited it.
The lion took one look and sprang. Midway in the air, it struck
something, roared in victorious fashion, then settled to chew it to
pieces. But it wasn’t a man--it was that chair. He disentangled himself
and leaped again, only to tangle himself with the second chair which
“Cap” had tossed in his path. A third time, while again Ricardo broke
the leap with the first chair which he had retrieved while the lion
was breaking away from the second; then the cat paused to look his new
antagonist over. So far he hadn’t been hurt at all. Merely foiled. Here
was some one who could outwit him, and who really had him at his mercy,
who didn’t beat him, but who, instead, talked and purred and meowed
continually in friendly fashion. The lion didn’t leap again.
One by one the whole group was introduced to its new trainer. Not once
was a gun fired. Not once was a cat struck, other than a sharp tap with
that buggy whip. That season the “hopeless” act once more went on the
road, and “Cap” Ricardo worked it!
In fact, “Cap” is a man of individual theories. Just as his kitchen
chair was an idea of his own, so there are others.
“I’ll stick my head in any lion’s mouth on earth,” he says. “But,” with
a wink, “I got a trick about it. Always chew tobacco, see? If the lion
should happen to close down, I’d just let that tobacco go in his mouth.
Ever notice how you’ll open your jaws sudden-like when you’ve got hold
o’ something that tastes bad? Huh? Well, it’d be the same way with a
lion. He’d turn loose and I’d take my head out.”
Which is an optimistic manner in which to look at things. The
billing of “Cap” as “the man of a thousand scars” is only a slight
exaggeration. He possesses them by the hundreds, for “Cap” is a
specialist on undoing the misdeeds of others.
“It’s just this here old principle of red-hot coals, or coals of fire,
or whatever you call ’em,” he explains. “Now, for instance, if you hit
a man that’s tryin’ to be good to you, you’re goin’ to feel bad about
it, ain’t you? Well, a cat, when he’s clawing you up--he knows what
he’s doin’. Don’t ever get it in your head that he don’t. Particularly
a tiger cat. I always did like tiger cats better’n I liked lion cats,
at that. ’Course, lots of trainers will tell you different, but I’ve
seen ’em all; I’ve been among the slums and I’ve been among the
aristocrats, and what I claim is, the lions ain’t the king of beasts.
But, be that as it may, a cat knows what he’s doing. And when he finds
out he’s done a friend dirt, ain’t he goin’ to be sorry about it and do
his best to make up? That’s my theory, and it works out too.”
Incidentally, one of these little coals of fire took shape one day
while “Cap” was standing on the ballyhoo stand of a circus sideshow, a
lion by his side. Inadvertently, he poked the lion in an eye, and the
lion in turn bit off the middle finger of “Cap’s” right hand.
“But he didn’t mean to,” says “Cap”. “Figure yourself how surprised a
guy gets when he bumps his face into a door in the dark. He never meant
it.”
Which may sound as an unusual example. To a certain extent it is, for
“Cap” and his theories have an outstanding place in the show world, the
surprising thing about them being the fact that they have worked out
to such an extent that he “breaks” a great many of the animal acts for
the biggest circus in the world. However, there are other instances of
affection between trainer and animal, almost as remarkable.
Out on a ranch in Colorado live a man and a woman who once were
featured on the billboards of every city in the country. He was a
menagerie superintendent, she a trainer of lions, tigers and elephants.
But they troupe no more.
The circus does not represent to them what it once did. There seems
a certain bitterness about it, a grimness which they are unable to
dispel, and so they remain away. The elephant which they raised
together from a three-year-old “punk” to one of the really great
performers among pachyderms in America is dead, felled by volley after
volley of steel-jacketed bullets during a rampage at Salina, Kansas,
several years ago, in which he all but wrecked the menagerie and
endangered the lives of hundreds of persons.
Loneliness on the part of the elephant for his old trainers is commonly
accredited for his “badness.” But the circus had no other recourse;
there were human lives to guard and only one thing was possible, to
slay the maddened beast before it, in turn, became a slayer. But that
argument doesn’t go with his former trainers.
“They surely could have found some way of holding him quiet until we
got there,” is their plaint, “they just didn’t understand him! If they
had even told him that we were coming, he’d have quieted down. He just
wanted us, and we weren’t there, and he went out of his head for a
while. If they’d only penned him up in the cars and then wired us, we’d
have come; we’d have gotten there somehow!”
In answer to which the circus points to pictures of wrecked wagons,
smashed ticket boxes, torn side walling, and overturned animal dens--in
vain. The trainers can’t accept the argument.
“The circus wouldn’t be the same--without Snyder,” is their reply, and
the big tops go traveling on without two stellar performers.
A similar incident came in Texas, during the necessary killing of
another elephant on the same show, which had become maddened through
“_must_,” and was virtually insane. He had torn the menagerie almost to
shreds, injured one man, and was holding a whole town at bay. And while
circus men hastened for army rifles, the executive staff struggled with
a woman who strove by every means of feminine aggressiveness to break
from their grasp, and go to that elephant.
“Let me go, you idiots!” she screamed in hysterical fashion. “I can
handle him! I’m not afraid--let me go! Let me go!”
She had trained the elephant for two years, and it had obeyed her every
command. With any other pachyderm, she would have understood that the
natural condition of “must” brings insanity, and that, when in this
condition, it recognizes no one, understands no command, and knows
nothing save the wildest sort of maniacal antagonism toward everything,
animate or inanimate, which may come into its path. But her faith in
this particular beast had transgressed even beyond good sense. It was
necessary to drag her from the circus grounds by main force before the
first shot could be fired at the unfortunate beast!
Nor does the love of animals always confine itself to the trainer.
Workmen of the circus are shadowy beings; few persons know whence they
come, what their life before they drifted into the nomadic, grim life
of the “razorback,” the “canvasman” or the “big top roughneck.” There
are stories by the scores in the unshaven beings who sleep about the
lot in the afternoons; stories of men whose finer cast of features
tells of a time when all was not work and long hours, hints of hidden
things in the shadows; they are men who seldom write a letter or
receive one. And they are lonely.
Human companionship often does not appeal to them. But the friendship
of animals is a different thing. Perhaps it is because they can talk
to these beasts during the long hours of the night, as the circus
train rocks along on its journey from town to town, knowing that their
confidences will not be revealed. Nevertheless, the fact remains that
more than one workman has been left behind in an alien burial ground,
with no close human friend to know of his death, and with only a lion
or tiger or elephant to watch for a companion who never again appears.
More than once also I have seen laborers of the circus volunteer to
“sit up” with a dying orang-outang or chimpanzee, doing their work by
day, remaining awake at night and nursing the beast in the hours of
darkness; at last, lonely again, tears in their eyes, to shuffle on
out to their hard, grim, dangerous labors, while a still form remains
behind, to be buried behind the big top, after the matinée. It was such
a case as this that formed a story which a certain circus owner likes
to tell, as he explains one of the reasons why the workmen of his show
are better treated than they were in other days, and furnished with
more conveniences and accommodations. For in this case it was the man
and not the animal that suffered tragedy.
No one around the show even remembers his name. They only know that his
loyalty and devotion in a strange friendship caused a soft-hearted
circus owner to become far more interested in the workmen than ever
before, almost to the point of sentimental solicitude. The recipient of
that loyalty, incidentally, was rather grotesque,--Bon, the baby hippo,
or, in circus language, “the blood-sweating behemoth of Holy Writ.”
Four men carried Bon to the show when he arrived, a fat
aimless-appearing baby river hog from the Nile Country. The press
agents properly exploited him. Which Bon didn’t seem to relish
whatever, for all that the baby hippopotamus did was whine. One day the
menagerie superintendent received an inspiration.
“That hip’s lonesome,” he announced to an assistant. “Round up one of
them there ‘roughnecks’ and put him in with it--see if that does any
good.”
The “roughneck,” known only as Mike, was obtained, and paid a few
dollars extra a week for the discomfort of sleeping in the same cage
with a hippopotamus. A silent, taciturn individual, he had told nothing
of himself when he came on the show; his name had been plainly a
makeshift, and the circus, with other things to think about, had made
no inquiries.
The baby hippo ceased to whine. Gradually, it was noticed that the
“hippopotamus nurse,” was taking more and more interest in his charge,
pilfering bread for him from the cookhouse, or cutting fresh grass
from around the circus lot, when he should have been resting during
matinée hours. A month passed. The hippo seemed cured.
“Guess you can go back to your bunk now,” said the menagerie
superintendent.
The “hippo nurse” nodded. But the next morning, the superintendent
found him again in the behemoth’s den.
“Just thought I’d sneak out an’ see how he was gettin’ along,” came the
explanation. “An’ he was whinin’--so I stuck with him.”
The superintendent winked--to himself. Two dollars a week extra is a
fortune to a circus roughneck.
“Nix on that stuff,” came finally; “the pay’s stopped.”
“Yeh. I know it.”
And Mike continued to sleep in the hippopotamus den--without pay.
Another month passed. Two more after that. The circus rounded into its
trip down the west coast, for its final effort at possible dollars
before the cold weather closed in. Then, one night, the emergencies
suddenly clamped hard. There had come a shrieking cry from the shrouded
wagons atop the flat cars, the warning of that feared thing of the
circus:
“Fire! F-i-r-e!”
[Illustration: FEED A HIPPOPOTAMUS AND HE’LL DO THE REST.]
[Illustration: BON, THE BABY HIPPO, FOR WHOM A MAN GAVE HIS LIFE.]
Hurrying men “spotted” the cage where a red glow had shown for an
instant, then faded--the hippopotamus den, evidently set afire by a
spark from the engine. The train stopped. Workmen and performers rushed
forward.
The den was dripping with water, evidently carried from the circus
water-cart just ahead. A bucket lay beside the cage. But Mike the
“hippo nurse” was not to be found.
Then came a shout. They had discovered him by the right of way,
his neck broken; in the fight for his grotesque comrade’s life, he
evidently had slipped on the top of the den and fallen from the train.
Death had been instantaneous.
But that last bucket of water had extinguished the fire.