CHARACTER IN THE CAGES
Once upon a time I saw a gang fight, down in the gas-house district
of New York. The street had been quiet a moment before, save for two
men walking toward each other, and a group of be-capped, furtive-eyed
individuals lounging in front of a cigar store, intent upon nothing,
apparently, save loafing. Then the first blow was struck as the two men
met!
Immediately that crowd of loafers leaped into action; soon they were
crowded about the fighting pair; darting and leaping in their attempt
to reach the man whom they strove to overcome. At last the struggling
twain broke for a moment, giving an opportunity for the gang to reach
its victim; soon the overpowered man lay an unconscious thing of welts
and wounds upon the pavement, while the gang slunk away into places of
hiding lest they be discovered upon the arrival of the police.
Not so long ago, I saw another gang fight. This time the scene was not
a city street but the “permanent cages” of a menagerie in the winter
quarters of a big circus. The victim was a hyena; the gang composed of
striped Bengal tigers. But the tactics were just the same!
One began the fight, centering every attention of his victim upon
himself. Then while the howling, loathsome hyena strove his best to
ward off the attack of a superior foe, the three other Bengal tigers
crept upon him unaware, caught him with their heavy claws, dragged him
through an opening beneath the sliding door of the cage partition--then
ripped him to pieces! It was the gas-house district fight all over
again!
In fact, when quarrels and bickerings and temper are concerned, one
encounters some strange things in the menagerie of a big circus--and
for it all, there is only one parallel. For once a person becomes
interested enough to look behind the scenes. The menagerie ceases
to become such; it metamorphoses into a distinct community. The
investigator finds that everything with which a chief of police
is forced to cope in an ordinary town is work for the menagerie
superintendent also. The same fights, the same quarrels, the same
hatreds are there; the only difference is that the chief of police
has the advantage. He copes with human beings, to whom he can talk,
and whom he can warn against future infractions of the law. The
law-breakers under the supervision of the menagerie superintendent are
animals; one can’t punish a lion by fining him five bones. He doesn’t
know what is meant by it and simply stores up a new grudge because he’s
been deprived of his food, while the rest of the menagerie is glutting
itself with an extra portion.
With the result that there is far more lawlessness in the menagerie
than there is in the community. When Bill Jones comes home to dinner
with a headache there may be a quarrel because of his grouch, and he
may tell his wife that she’s the world’s worst cook, or make a few
other choice and personal remarks, but as a rule, he doesn’t pick up
the ax and carve his initials in her head with it. But when some one
crosses a lion that’s suffering from headache, the sky’s the limit.
Into action leap his claws and teeth, and unless there are plenty
of prod bars and feeding forks handy, the result, all too often, is
another family murder. When a jungle beast is the owner and possessor
of a side-splitting headache, he doesn’t care how soon he kills his
mate, the quicker the better. After which, perhaps, he can get a bit of
uninterrupted rest.
More, in the menagerie, a headache is a perfectly good alibi. It
wouldn’t amount to much for a man to stand in court and announce that
he killed his wife because his head or tooth ached, or because he had
an ingrowing toenail. But in the menagerie, the justifications are a
bit different. Animal men realize that the caged charges under their
care cannot know what is wrong with them, and what gives them such a
terrific grouch, and so they blame themselves when these things happen
and render a verdict:
“We, the jury, find that the Lioness Trilby came to her death because
she bothered Duke, who was suffering from indigestion.”
For, let it be known, all these things happen with animals. Headaches,
indigestion, sore feet, tuberculosis, pneumonia, rheumatism, toothache,
ingrowing toenails and even insanity are all logical excuses for
assault and battery, even murder, when the culprits are the caged
beasts of a menagerie or zoo. To say nothing of the hundred and one
other and more natural causes which bring trouble, and which, by the
way, can be found also on the police blotters of any large city.
For, just as greed, hate, avarice, theft, the desire for power, the
difference between races, viciousness and downright cantankerousness
cause trouble for the police of a community, so do these things breed
excitement in the menagerie. Behind every quarrel of the cages there is
a reason, such as one finds in the records of the emergency hospital,
or upon the complaint books of the police and justice courts.
[Illustration: INDIGESTION MAKES A LION VICIOUS IN THE ARENA.]
[Illustration: NEVER TRY TO DO THIS IF THE LION HAS A HEADACHE.]
Of all the causes, perhaps the physical ones are the occasions of the
most brawls, those brought about by indigestion, headache and the sort.
Sounds a bit unusual, doesn’t it, that animals should be subject to
the same ailments as humans? Yet, on consideration, it shouldn’t. The
mechanical construction of the body is about the same; why shouldn’t it
be subject to the same ills? Headache, for instance, or rheumatism.
However, rheumatism with animals comes most often from a certain
thing--inbreeding. When the father and the mother of the beast are too
closely related, the result is a knotty, stumbling cub, practically
saturated with rheumatism. The further result is a mean-minded animal,
built upon the same principles as the human incorrigible. More than one
“untamable” beast has been cured of rheumatism and become perfectly
tractable. No mind in the world can be peaceable with every joint of
the body aching!
The same is true of toothache, and in one instance, at least, I’ve seen
it lead to some surprising things. Whether you know it or not, the
hippopotamus, contrary to general belief, is one of the most amiable
animals of the whole menagerie. A great river hog, he has little
thought save his tank, his carrots and hay, and to be let alone. With
one of the big shows is one of these beasts that is so tractable that
he is allowed to wander at will wherever he cares to do so, and until a
few months ago, his wanderings, especially when the show was in winter
quarters, were made a thing of continual woe by two baby elephants who
persisted in tormenting the poor old hippo by every sort of trick
which came into their brains. They would slap him with their trunks,
then move swiftly away. They would butt him about the yard, steal his
food, and in general make life a burden, while the hippopotamus did
nothing save grunt in piteous fashion and strive his best to get out of
their path. Then came the change.
Bon, as the river hog was called, on a warm day this spring, waddled
as usual into the winter quarters yard. The two elephants were there
to receive him and to start their usual pranks. But the first move
brought disaster. Wide open went the long-toothed mouth of the hippo,
a bellowing grunt came from his big throat, and the elephants started
hurriedly in the other direction, while Bon, pig-eyes gleaming
viciously, short legs spraddled, strove his utmost to overtake them.
At last he cornered them behind a parade wagon under one of the sheds
and there he held them, trumpeting and squealing, until the animal
men came to their assistance. But even then Bon would not release his
victims. Instead he rushed at the caretakers, and for a time held the
whole menagerie yard at bay, until his heavy cage could be pushed into
position, other dens placed about him to form a barricade, and the
hulking beast at last forced into his prison. Even there he continued
to bellow and “open up,” until the circus men believed they had found
something new, a hippopotamus that had gone “bad.” However, the
superintendent held a different idea.
“Thought I noticed a hole in one o’ them tushes when he opened up the
last time,” he announced. “I’ll wait until he quiets down and take a
look.”
More, when the time for the investigation came, it was found that Bon
possessed a cavity in one of his big teeth almost large enough to admit
two of the superintendent’s fingers, and so deep that it was quite
evident that the nerve was exposed. A veterinary was called and given
the biggest dental job he ever had tackled, that of killing the nerve
of a hippopotamus tooth, extracting that nerve, filling the root canals
and then plugging up the hole. Nearly three weeks was required for
the task, as it was necessary to kill the nerve by degrees, with the
hippopotamus lashed by a perfect network of chains, and his big mouth
held open with blocks and tackles. But it was accomplished, and since
then, Bon has been his old, amiable self again.
As to the indigestion and the headaches, sometimes they go together,
and sometimes they don’t.
On the circus, life is a matter of constant travel. The show is here
one day, a hundred miles farther on the next, while always a day in
advance is an overworked individual called the “twenty-four man,” whose
task it is to provide the circus with everything it needs, even to
the meat which is fed the carnivorous animals. Naturally, with one
town a metropolis and the next a village, there are various grades and
conditions of meat. One day the food will be a cold-storage product,
the next perfectly fresh, and perhaps on the third slightly tainted.
The result is indigestion on the part of the cat animals, a headache,
a bad appearance, dull eyes, and a mammoth grouch. Those are the times
when the trainers look sharper than usual. A lion with indigestion
and a headache doesn’t care much for consequences. He’s looking for
trouble. As to the specific headache, have you ever noticed that a
menagerie carries a peculiar odor all its own? That’s what brings the
headache: too much “aroma.”
Every cat animal gives off this particular body-odor, which is
saturated with the fumes of ammonia. The result is that unless there is
plenty of ventilation, the ammonia so loads the air that the breathing
of it clogs the brain and brings a terrific headache. I have seen
everything, man and brute, suffering from this cause in menagerie
houses poorly equipped for ventilation, and forced to be closed tightly
because of extremely cold weather. In the summer, the beasts themselves
suffer on “long runs” where the cages are “boarded up” for an unusual
length of time; there is not sufficient air circulation to carry away
the ammonia smell and the result is an ear-splitter of a headache.
It’s often also the cause of some twenty or thirty encounters that
may run all the way from a sharp spat between two caged animals to an
actual murder! Which explains the fact that on hot days--if you’ve ever
seen a circus on the move--the side boards often are let down from the
cages, and a virtual menagerie display of cat animals is given by the
show trains as it moves through the small cities along its route to the
next show stand.
As to the other natural causes, the surest way to bring bad temper
to an elephant is to neglect his feet. The great weight of the
beast and the constant succession of pavements results in “corns”
between the big toes, or great patches of callous on the ball of the
foot, and unless these are carefully “chiropodized,” there is a bad
elephant in the herd. An elephant weighs from two to three tons. You
can imagine that weight pressing on a “corn!” He becomes fretful,
irritable and dangerous. The result is that the feet of circus
elephants are inspected regularly, and that every “bull-keeper,” as the
superintendents of the herds are called, is an expert in elephantine
chiropody!
The same, in a measure, is true of the cat animal keepers, except that
their greatest care regarding the feet of the beast must concern the
claws, lest they turn back into the flesh. A circus with which I once
was connected possessed a big leopard, and one that was considered the
most tractable of the whole group of performing “pards.” One morning
when the cage was opened, it was to reveal a hissing, red-jawed brute,
his body splotched with blood, and his mate dead in a corner of the
den. An investigation brought the reason: he had been maddened by the
pain of a claw which had turned back into his flesh, and which drove
like a knife thrust with his every step! He hadn’t really desired
to kill his mate; he merely had become so frantic with pain that
his senses for the moment left him, and he murdered while under the
influence of a thing he could not control. So the animal men chalked it
up to mental aberration, and let it go at that. For even with animals
they’ve encountered insanity in its true form, even hallucinations!
[Illustration: BABY WILD CATS, AND THEY LOOK THEIR PART.]
It came in the being of Buddha, a great, beautifully striped Bengal
tiger on one of the shows a few years ago. The beast belonged to a
performing group and was trained to refuse to enter its den at the
conclusion of the arena performance until the trainer, apparently at
the end of his resources, would bring forth his revolver and fire twice
at the recalcitrant brute. Then the tiger would turn, and with a rush
seek its cage, making a leap of some ten feet at great speed, for the
entrance. However, one afternoon, it misjudged, leaping slightly to
the right, with the result that it struck its head with crashing force
against one of the steel uprights of the arena. For a second it
scrambled wildly, then dropped to the ground. The trainer, seeing that
the beast was unconscious, hurriedly unstrapped the arena gate and
allowed the entrance of assistants, who loaded the stricken tiger into
the cage. Once out of the circus tent, the trainer worked over the
beast until consciousness returned, then boarded the cage up for the
day, believing that rest and darkness would repair the damage.
But the next morning the glare of insanity was in the great cat’s
eyes when the side boards were removed. It hissed. It roared. Then
it leaped, as the trainer sought to approach. In vain the friend of
other days tried to soothe it; all to no purpose. And the queer thing
was that the gaze of the striped brute was far above the head of the
trainer, and when it leaped, it struck at the steel bars at the very
top of the cage. A hurry call was sent for the owner-manager, and that
wise old showman stood for a long time in thought. At last:
“Bring me a piece of canvas,” he ordered, and an animal man hurried to
comply. The owner placed the fabric on the end of a stick and pushed it
to the very bars of the cage. The beast growled, hissed, then leaped
again. But the claws struck the steel of the bars and fully two feet
above the offending canvas! The owner grunted.
“Hallucinations!” he announced. “Sees everything about twice as big as
it really is. That’s why it strikes so high.”
Following which test after test was resorted to, with the same result
and the same verdict. Rest and darkness, pampering and quiet did not
aid, though the circus man strove for months to return the tiger to its
natural self. At last came the only remedy for a suffering thing,--a
shot from a high-powered rifle, and the entry of a menagerie loss in
the cause of humanity.
The same sort of action was necessary a few years ago in another
circus when one of a group of four tigers suddenly developed fits
while the show was on parade. But before Fred Alispaw, the menagerie
superintendent, could perform an act of mercy, the companion tigers
had given an example of cruelty toward one of their kind. The unusual
actions of the Bengal seemed to madden them; before the shot could be
fired, they had nearly torn their cage-mate to bits! When the hide
of the beast was examined, it did not show a space larger than a
six-inch square that had not been pierced by the claws of the other
fright-maddened occupants of the cage.
Fear--fear of man, of unusual happenings, even of a flag which drops
awry and flaps against the bars of a cage--is the biggest problem that
the animal trainer has to face. The minute an animal becomes possessed
of fear, he becomes possessed also of murder, nor is his best friend,
man or beast, exempt from the effects of the desire to kill the first
thing he sees. Mabel Stark, one of the widely known animal trainers,
bears many a tiger scar simply because a “towner” horseman insisted
on riding too close to the cage which she occupied with three tigers
during a parade. The animals became frightened; they fought first among
themselves, then turned almost simultaneously upon their trainer. When
at last she was rescued, she was a mass of claw and tooth marks--and a
hospital inmate for more than three weeks!
Greed and avarice too are always present. The exemplification of greed
is especially apparent at a time when one would think it farthest away,
at the time of mating. When the springtime comes and the birds twitter
in the trees, when the young man walks up the maple-lined street with
a box of candy under his arm, and when the unselfishness of love is
in the air, that is when the cat animal of the menagerie becomes
greedy. The lion or the tiger doesn’t woo his wife by offering her the
best of the portion of horse-meat that is shoved to him through the
bars. Instead, he eats his supply as rapidly as he can, then rushes
toward his mate, gives her a good wallop on the side of the head, and
takes her breakfast away from her. Or if the mate happens to be a bit
stronger than he, she does the robbing. It’s all a matter of strength
and determination, and the result usually is a glorious marital fight.
Incidentally greed, in one or two instances of menagerie life, has
brought strange denouements. In one case, at least, it made a hero out
of a coward, and reversed the regular rules of menagerie supremacy.
Although the lion may be the king of beasts in looks, actions, and
honor, he is far from it in fighting ability. The clash between the
lion and the tiger invariably ends in a victory for the striped beast,
and in several encounters between King Edward, a big black-maned
Nubian, and Dan, a Royal Bengal tiger, the “king of beasts” had moved
out second best. Evidently Dan realized the fact, for when the two were
in the arena together, it was a constant succession of bullying on the
part of the tiger, of cuffing matches in which the striped beast stood
on his haunches and slapped the lion with quick, shifting blows, for
all the world like those of a lightweight boxer, and of rumbling growls
which sent King Edward hurrying to his pedestal whenever he came in the
proximity of his enemy. But at last there came a reversal.
They were cage-mates, that is, they occupied a cage together, but not
in company, if it thus can be explained. A two-inch wooden partition
divided them, and while each had half a cage, neither ever was actually
placed with the other. For several days King Edward had been “off his
feed,” and to tempt his appetite, Lucia Zora, his trainer, conceived
the idea of feeding him a live chicken. The fowl was thrust between the
bars to squawk and flutter wildly, and at last to be captured in the
big claws of the excited lion, which, like some overgrown house cat,
began to toy with the tid-bit for a moment before devouring it. But
just then, a new element entered, Dan the Bengal.
The tiger had scented the fowl and noticed the commotion on the other
side of the cage. Frantically he had begun to work at the partition
which divided him from the lion; finally in some fashion, he loosened
the clamp, and then raised the dividing board, even as a person would
raise a window, and rushed through toward the tormented King Edward.
But this time the lion did not skulk away. Instead, the beast turned,
a raging engine of destruction, and the fight that followed was the
fiercest thing that the menagerie had seen in years. The animal men
sought to separate them. It was useless. King Edward had reached the
end of his submission, and Dan, through his greed, the end of his life.
For the lion, disregarding all the usual leonine methods of fighting,
suddenly adopted the tiger’s tactics, attacking from a position
straight on his haunches, and with both forepaws working, instead of
the usual one. The result was that soon the tiger’s claws were tangled
in the greasy, heavy, armor-like mane of the lion--and useless. While
those of King Edward ripped at the foe until Dan sank to the cage
floor, a stricken, gasping, disembowelled thing. Then--and not until
then--King Edward ceased his attack, disengaged his mane from the now
useless claws of the Bengal, and went back to his feast!
In fact, the usual end of a quarrel which has its inception in greed
or avarice is death. And those elements can be typified in queer
incidents. An ostrich possesses three things, the smallest brain of any
bird or animal of its size, the most powerful kick of anything except a
mule, and a positive obsession for anything that glitters. A few years
ago, a circus made a feature of two ostriches trained to draw a small
cart in parade and in the entrees, keeping the big birds in a net-wire
enclosure in the menagerie tent as an exhibition. The owner of the
show possessed a large diamond ring, and it was one of his amusements
to raise his hand over the enclosure and watch the antics of the
weak-billed birds as they strove vainly to pull the glittering stone
from its setting. Then one day a loose prong allowed the gem to drop
within the enclosure!
A wide-eyed and somewhat excited owner gulped as he saw two thousand
dollars worth of diamond fall into the straw and the two ostriches
rush wildly for it. Then his eyes grew even wider as one of the birds
raised a heavy foot, and with a straight, outward kick, sent his
be-plumed companion reeling half across the enclosure. However, before
the kicker could reach the diamond, the kickee was back on the job
again, to release a series of blows, and the fight was on.
It continued for a half an hour, and ended only when one of the birds,
by a swift and well-aimed blow, caught his adversary just at the
junction of the neck and head, decapitating him. By that time, all idea
of what the fight was about had left the tiny brain of the victor, and
gasping, his wings raised, he wobbled to a far end of the enclosure and
settled there, while the owner thrust a hand hurriedly into the straw,
rescued his diamond and rushed for a jeweler.
“Lucky at that,” he mused, as he went out of the menagerie entrance,
“you can buy ostriches for a hundred dollars apiece!”
So the list runs, even through to that of racial hatreds. The
oft-repeated chase of the dog and cat, and the enmity which seemingly
is never overcome between them, is repeated in the menagerie, with the
exception of the fact that here it is the cat which chases the dog. It
is almost impossible to work a leopard group in the same arena or ring
in which a dog act has been worked; the canine scent arouses them to
such an extent that they can think of nothing else than hunting their
hereditary enemy. The same is true in a measure with tigers, and in
a lesser degree with lions. In a few instances, cases have been known
where lions and dogs actually have become friends, but with a tiger or
leopard, never. The sole result of their meeting is a swift lunge, a
crackling impact, a setting of the feline jaws at the base of the dog’s
skull, and the breaking of its neck, all happening in an instant. Then
the dog is devoured, nor can all the efforts of animal men or trainers
drag the enraged beast from its prey.
In fact, the only thing that can arouse greater excitement among
felines than a dog is that outcast of the animal world, the hyena. Here
the racial lines are drawn sharply and distinctly; it is an enmity
which is at high pitch always; the very proximity of a hyena cage
will drive a tiger or leopard to madness, and if a feline is placed
in the compartment opposite to a hyena, it seldom ceases its efforts
until the day when some careless animal attendant leaves the partition
door unclamped, when the feline can claw and tear until it raises the
barrier and rushes through to annihilate its foe.
In lesser degree is shown the hatred of a tiger for a horse, the hatred
of a puma for a bear, the hatred of a chimpanzee for an elephant.
[Illustration: REPRESENTATIVE CIRCUS DOGS.]
Just as a warning, if you are a father or mother, and you decide some
time to take your baby to the circus, never allow it to get within
“reaching distance” of a leopard’s cage. Why, no animal man can
explain, but the hatred of a leopard for a baby amounts almost to a
mania, and the beast will fret itself into a frenzy in its attempts to
reach through the bars, and catch its victim in its poisonous claws,
pull it into the cage, there to kill and devour it!
So the list of emotional causes for menagerie quarrels is nearly run.
But there remain two things in which the line is rather closely drawn
between the beast and the human. One of them is the irritation of
annoying things and the other is just general cussedness.
Have you ever been in a crowd--a tremendous, jostling, packed
crowd--where every one is talking at once, where somebody steps on
your toes, where the air is stifling, and there doesn’t seem room
to breathe? And have you ever been able to come out of one of those
crowds with your temper actually whole? The same is true of animals;
it is a rule with the circus that when the crowd reaches unbearable
proportions, the side boards of the animal cages must be put in place
and the brutes allowed to rest in darkness and quiet. The irritation of
constant, thick-packed throngs before their cages gets on their nerves
to such an extent that there is danger of a general fight throughout
the whole menagerie! More, in several cases the beasts have been known
to vent their rage upon the crowd itself, and there is the constant
danger that some one will be pushed too close to the cages. This would
mean the instant extension of a poisonous set of claws, a roar and a
slashing blow which might mean death. So, while the crowd may protest,
the circus knows best, and closes the cages.
Cussedness? There are just two things to remember. Never try to make
friends with a rhinoceros or a camel. They are the two crabs of the
animal universe; evil-tempered, selfish, mean and vengeful. Not even
the animal attendant ever knows when a rhinoceros is going to turn upon
him; there does not seem to be a single element of the big, armored
beast’s nature that admits of friendliness.
And the camel! He is the supreme grouch of the menagerie. He’s never in
good temper. He’s the bestial dyspeptic of the universe, and he carries
a weapon in his mouth that is worse than the far-heralded perfume of
the polecat. When a camel decides that he doesn’t like you, he gives
you his cud, with an aim that would cause the crack-hitting tobacco
chewers of the country store to curl up in envy. And once you’ve become
the owner and possessor of that cud, splattered over your person, the
best thing to do is to hurry to the nearest store and buy yourself a
new suit of clothing!
But the cud isn’t the only weapon of the camel. His temper is such that
he uses everything available,--teeth, head and hoofs! He can kick like
a bay steer, butt like a goat, and bite like a steel vise. More, once
he decides upon a dislike, he doesn’t stop until he has made use of his
every item of armament. But there’s at least one redeeming feature;
once it’s all out of his system, it’s out!
In the circus, when an animal man discovers that he is the recipient
of dislike on the part of the camel, he doesn’t attempt to cajole or
threaten. He merely plants a bale of hay upon his back, covers this
with a piece of canvas, then, walking close to the camel, does or says
something to irritate the beast. The result is a quick thrust of teeth
or hoofs, whereupon the animal man dumps the “dummy” on the ground
and quickly moves to the nearest hiding place. The camel doesn’t even
notice him; its every vengeful thought is bent upon that thing on the
ground. For fifteen minutes the “slaughter” continues, in which the
beast kicks the canvas-covered hay, bites it, spits upon it, butts it
and tramples it. After which the animal man can approach with impunity.
To the camel, the old animal man is dead, killed during a personally
conducted slaughter. This new person he treats as some one he never had
seen before, and all malice is gone.
In which, perhaps, was the beginning of that old circus axiom:
“If you can’t beat ’em--jine ’em!”