KIDS OF THE CAGES
The circus was in the “cracker neck” district; out at the front gates,
there was quarreling and bickering, as time after time the inner ticket
takers stretched a hand toward some scrawny woman with a gangly boy in
her arms and exclaimed:
“Hey, Leddy! Two bits fer thet kid. An’ Leddy--’tain’t polite no more
for gents to let women carry ’em aroun’.”
This was the district of “stair-steps,” of thin, narrow-shouldered
women, trailed by processions of children, five and six in a line,
thin-cheeked, narrow-necked, ill nurtured, and ill prepared, through
too fast progeneration, for a chance in life. More than once the
manager personally ushered some gaunt family through the gates when the
frightened glance of the mother told all too plainly that there were no
funds to take care of the progeny which she had hoped to slip past the
ticket takers. For us of the circus, there was something pitiable about
it all; the big show likes to take misery only for itself. With the
result that the owner lost more than one quarter that day, because of
persons admitted without a charge.
“Don’t need many ladders aroun’ this country,” said a facetious animal
man. “All they have t’ do is line up the kids and walk on their heads.
Ever see so many stair-steppers?”
“Shorty” Alispaw, menagerie superintendent, nodded.
“Reminds me,” he said, “I’ve got to be getting rid of a few of my own.
Better be advertising ’em pretty quick; some carnival outfit may want
’em.”
He jerked a thumb toward a gilded cage in which romped what appeared
to be three rather thin, but otherwise healthy leonine youngsters. I
stepped closer.
“They look all right. What’s wrong with ’em?”
Shorty glanced again toward the cage, then looked out toward the
crowded menagerie, where mothers still were herding their numerous
broods along the sawdust pathways.
“Same as them,” came his announcement. “Stair-steppers. Second litter
in a year. Not much difference between them and the humans. Bring ’em
into the world too fast, and they’ll be on the bum somehow. Something
always showing up after they get grown. Now you’d say those were
perfectly healthy cubs, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes--maybe a little thin.”
“And weak in the hind quarters, and with poor hearts, excitable
natures; all wrong on the digestion and a half a dozen other things.
Same way as with human kids that’ve piled into the world too fast.
Always yelping for the doctor.”
Which brought up the subject of menagerie kids in general, and a good
many comparisons. For, after all, the child of the gilded cage isn’t so
much different from the human baby.
There are the same trials and tribulations, the same squawks resultant
from a bumped head, the same curiosity and mischievousness, and the
same troublous times in becoming acquainted with the world and its
manners, even to the extent of kindergarten. More than that, there are
the personalities, the family traits; the children who are bright, the
ones who are dullards; there is family pride, the don’t-care attitude;
the mother who neglects her children and the father----
But fathers seem to run a bit short on family affairs in the animal
kingdom, with the exception of one beast, the lion. The King of Beasts
is the original home-lover, believes, according to his nature, that
he has the finest little girl in the world for a wife, and stays with
the children when their mother has other things to think about. What’s
more, he is willing to protect them. In fact, he often is too good a
protector; sometimes he actually kills them with kindness.
It is a menagerie rule that all animal mothers and their children shall
be granted seclusion until the baby is accustomed to the circus world
with its attendant bawling of ticket sellers, surging of the crowds,
and the general excitement of circus day. Hence, ten days before the
advent of children, the boards are placed about the cage and the mother
is left in solitude. In this seclusion the babies arrive, to crawl and
whine in darkness until their eyes open, then to live in the quiet and
peace for a week more, until the nervous fears of the mother are over
and the babies themselves are stronger and not so easily frightened by
the throngs of onlookers about the cages. But sometimes the menagerie
attendants make mistakes or are ignorant; the superintendent himself is
a busy man. He cannot look after everything.
Thus it was that on a show with which I once traveled, Queen brought
into the world three fuzzy little cubs. The menagerie superintendent
had fastened the door tight and given his instructions that the
side boards were not to be removed until he had given the command.
In one half of the cage was the mother and her babies, while in the
other compartment was Prince, the proud father, growling gruffly
through the bars at his offspring. Parade time came and the menagerie
superintendent went forth with the elephant herd, always a source of
worry to a circus because of their temperamental natures and the
danger of a stampede. Only a new man, hired that morning and not
conversant with the details of the care of the cage inmates, was left
in the big tent, and in his work he decided, like many another new man,
and some new brooms, to be thorough.
Evidently, to his mind, some careless attendant had forgotten to
take the side boards from the cage which housed Queen, Prince and
their babies. The new man took them down; then, in his efforts to be
thorough, decided to sweep out the cage. Queen was docile and made no
objections to his interference, although nervous regarding her cubs.
But Prince was plainly hostile; the lion father is ever ready to
battle for his young. The result was that the new attendant raised the
partition separating Prince from his family, and once the male had gone
through the opening, the man sprang within to sweep out the cage. This
done, he again raised the partition, and by the use of a feeding fork,
sought to make Prince return to his own home. The efforts were useless.
The great lion became enraged to a point of fury. He fought the fork,
clawing at it and seeking to bite the steel. He lunged against the
bars, the great tent echoing with his roars--then suddenly appeared to
consider that the attack was not against him, but against his offspring.
Queen, in the meanwhile, had picked up two of the cubs, carried them
to a corner and was returning for the third when Prince saw it. A lunge
and he had grasped the little ball of fur by the scruff of the neck,
and with quick, pacing steps, had begun to carry it, seeking in his
ignorant way for some place to hide it and keep it safe from harm.
Into his side of the den he went at last and the attendant dropped the
partition. But the great Nubian still paced; still the cub dangled
from his tremendous jaws. The attendant strove to make him free the
cub by harassing him; it only made matters worse. Prince offered no
resistance; he only quickened his frightened, maddened pacing, and
still carried the cub. When the parade returned and the menagerie
superintendent entered the tent, he found the new man facing him with
the announcement that Prince had taken one of his cubs and would not
release it.
There was little time for reprimands. The superintendent affixed the
side boards to the den as quickly as possible, hoping against hope. It
was in vain. Prince, faithful, protective old Prince, had killed when
he had sought to aid. The baby was dead, choked through the tightening
of the throat skin as old Prince had carried it aimlessly to and fro,
seeking a spot where it might be safe! That night, when the circus
left town, it left also a somewhat bewildered man, still hazy from
the volleys of epithets which had flown in his direction from the
menagerie superintendent, and a little mound of earth out behind the
big top, where slept a lion cub, dead because of a father’s instinctive
desire for its protection.
[Illustration: BABY LIONS ARE ALWAYS SOUGHT AFTER AS PETS.]
[Illustration: A PAIR OF REAL “TEDDY BEARS”.]
In fact, in the animal kingdom, the lion is the model husband and
father. It even happens that the lion father will watch his offspring
with more care and concern than the mother. More than one menagerie
feature has been provided through this air of proprietorship and pride
which the lion shows in his young. Circus men neglect no opportunities
to provide the unusual, with the result that at the advent of a litter
of cubs, the male sometimes is allowed to enter the cage where, while
the crowd looks on, he good-naturedly crouches, allows the cubs to
climb on his back, then, growling in good humor, walks slowly about the
cage, the mother looking on from her corner, for all the world like a
happily wedded pair; sometimes the proud papa lies down on the floor,
letting the kids rest on his back. In fact, the lion father thinks a
great deal of his children. If any one should happen to doubt it, just
try to take a litter of lion cubs out of a cage while the father is
there. The mother may seek her corner in fright, but not the father.
He becomes a vengeful demon, ready to fight feeding forks, revolver
fire, anything; even willing to give his life that his cubs may be
protected. There is only one serious drawback in the happiness of
lion families. They have too many children--six a year in groups
of three--with the result that all too often the offspring is weak,
prone to every disease, sometimes dulled in mentality and subject
to sunstrokes. When the circus starts into hot territory the wise
menagerie superintendent begins looking about for zoos in cool climates
that desire cat animals, especially lions. Otherwise the penalties
of birth may cause a few losses to be entered in the ledgers of the
treasury wagon.
Quite the opposite in family bliss is the estate of the tiger. With
Mr. and Mrs. Bengal there isn’t any such thing. The female tiger
hates her mate and he dislikes her as cordially. Not only that, but
he doesn’t seem to understand why there should be children in any
family. To a gentleman tiger, there is no greater indoor sport than
that of murdering his offspring, while to the mother there is nothing
that merits greater love and protection than the one or two cubs
which arrive every few years, for the tiger has children but seldom
in captivity. Never is there offspring more than once a year, and
sometimes the space lengthens to only once in three years; and usually
there is but one cub.
Incidentally, there’s a sex problem in tigerdom; many a tigress goes
through life an old maid, simply because there are not enough gentlemen
tigers to go round. An invariable rule seems to hold sway with the
striped beasts; if only one cub is born, the menagerie superintendent
may announce a boy or a girl, for with the single child the matter of
sex seems to be a haphazard affair. But let two cubs come into the
world and one of them will be a male while the other invariably will be
a female; while with the advent of a litter of three, there is usually
a ratio of two females to one male, with the result that there is
always a preponderance of female tigers. Perhaps that’s what makes the
males so grouchy.
For grouchy they are, especially toward their children. If the father
enters, through some accident, the mother’s side of the cage, it always
means a skirmish, and a wild effort on the part of the female to
protect her young, usually resulting in failure. The male tiger is much
larger and stronger, with the result that a brief battle leaves her
gasping and terrified, while with quick pounces and snarls of seeming
delight, the father murders his children, one by one, and then devours
them! But once, at least, in the circus world, there was reversal of
the usual happening.
Grace and Calcutta were the parents of three children, and loved each
other as soap loves a buzz saw. Partitioned from each other in the same
cage, they spent most of their time in snarling and hissing at each
other, the big male bounding and leaping at the bars, striving in his
utmost to break through. Then, one day, a careless attendant left the
partition open, and Calcutta gained his object.
But his rush did not seem to frighten Grace. Her cubs behind her, she
swayed uncertainly for a moment, as if summoning every atom of her
strength. Then, before attendants could separate them, they had met!
The fight which followed is history in the circus, passed along from
one menagerie superintendent to another as an example of mother love
and desperation. Grace was fully fifty pounds lighter than her vengeful
mate, but the thought of weight, or power or strength did not seem to
enter her mind. She only knew that if once the great, striped thing
passed her, three cubs would die, and she fought for them with every
vestige of her strength. In vain the menagerie men strove to separate
the struggling pair. The hose cart was hurried within the tent, and,
the pump working to its utmost, the full force of water was turned
upon them, the one thing which can be counted upon to cause a caged
animal to desist from an attack. Neither Grace nor Calcutta seemed even
to notice it. At last, the side boards were raised, in the hope that
darkness might end the battle. It only increased the turmoil within,
the noise of which rose higher and higher, at last to cease. The battle
was over.
Hurriedly the men dropped the side boards--in a futile hope. Calcutta
was dead, stretched almost the length of the compartment, while huddled
in a corner lay Grace, bleeding from a hundred tooth and claw marks,
but apparently content to lick and growl at the three frightened cubs
which tumbled about her!
Nor is it the father which is always the murderer in the tiger family.
Sometimes it is the mother herself, following in beast life the theory
of Wilde’s “Ballad of Reading Gaol” by killing the thing which she
loves best!
Of all the caged beasts of the circus, the tiger is the most nervous
and high-strung. Permanent insanity among tigers is not at all unusual,
while insanity for the mother at the time of the birth of her young
is a thing which every menagerie man fears. During this insanity, the
tiger is the enemy of everything, including herself. She kills her
cubs, she tears at her own flesh, she howls and roars and thunders
until the menagerie is a pandemonium. And the next day, once more
possessed of her mental balance, she wanders about her cage, whining
pitifully, searching, searching for the thing that is gone, her baby,
murdered while she had no knowledge of her actions. Nor can anything
appease her--month after month she will search, until at last, like a
human mother, her grief assuages itself in the expectation of a new
brood.
From all of which may be gained the idea that a tiger baby hasn’t an
easy time in life. To tell the truth, next to the leopard, its lot
is about the hardest in the menagerie. Threatened by both father and
mother at birth, with nervous stomachs and belligerent dispositions,
the tiger cub fights almost a constant battle for life. Of all the cat
animals, a tiger that has passed the danger mark, when it can shift for
itself, is the most celebrated thing in the show. And again it is the
female which usually wins the tussle. The male tiger is born with blood
in his eye. He is not allowed to play about the circus, the pet of
every canvasman and roughneck and animal man and performer, as is the
lion cub, which in its childhood is little different from a house cat.
Instead, the tiger baby must be kept caged. Otherwise it will tackle
the first dog that comes along, regardless of the disadvantage in size,
and there will be another feline catastrophe to mourn.
As for the leopard, it is the slum child of the animal kingdom. Its
mother cares nothing about it, the father is a brute, and almost from
the moment that the baby’s eyes are open, it shifts for itself. But
what it loses in parental affection, it makes up in play; there is
nothing in the whole menagerie which plays harder, not even the monkey.
The bars of the cage were made for climbing, and up the leopard kittens
go, nor seem to care when they fall from the top of the den, landing
on their heads with enough force almost to knock them unconscious. To
which the female pays little or no attention.
The result is that the leopard kitten, like the human street urchin,
develops an amazing courage and cunning; it is afraid of nothing,
brooks no obstacle in its play and, through the bars, will even hiss
and snarl at a full-grown lion and give every evidence of a desire to
break through and attack it! Meanwhile the mother snores on in her
corner, or merely looks up for a moment in half-curious fashion, then
goes ahead with her sleep. Babies don’t bother her!
In fact, a great deal of interference on the part of animal attendants
enters into the rearings of a healthy baby, especially in the cat
tribe. Especially is this true in the matter of diseases, for the life
of about one out of every four children that come to healthy maturity
is due, not to the mothers, but to the menagerie superintendent and
his assistants. Around a circus it is nothing to see a lion cub being
rubbed with warm oil, or squawking his displeasure at a mustard
draught, or even swaddled in flannel bandages to combat a “cold” which,
if allowed to progress, may become pneumonia overnight and result
in death. During the epidemics of influenza, those persons with the
strongest lungs often were the surest victims, once the disease became
seated. So it is with the lion. That beast has the strongest lungs of
any animal, and it is the most prone to death, once pneumonia strikes
it.
You’ve seen the constant human “sniffler”, always possessing a cold
yet never even bothered about it. The baby tiger is its counterpart.
More delicate generally, with lungs much weaker, constitutions built
upon a less stockier plan, yet pneumonia is rare. Instead, the tiger
child prefers to have chills and fever, corresponding to the ague in
the human, and shaking through the hours of even a hot afternoon.
Incidentally it becomes the recipient of a hated remedy, equally
disgusting to the lion, the tiger, the llama, the leopard or the
elephant--for they all are dosed with it, as to the human child. Its
name is castor oil!
Reverting, however, to leopard babies, theirs is the hardest lot of any
in the menagerie. There is no cure for their ailment, which begins to
come upon them about the time they are half-grown; every one, it seems,
is destined to become a victim; sooner or later a menagerie attendant
will motion with his head and announce:
“Sure had a tough time with that Lucy leopard. Begun throwin’ ’em this
mornin’. Thought she was gone for a half-hour or so.”
The disease is epilepsy and few indeed are the leopards which go
through life without it. In the midst of play, or in the middle of an
act--it chooses no time--there come frightened clawings, terrific
convulsions and stiffenings which seem to threaten the breaking of the
spine, and the torture is on. Nor have all the efforts of veterinaries
or doctors or highly schooled menagerie men been able to combat it.
That epilepsy, by the way, has led to some strange results in the
circus, and some exciting moments. A few years ago, on a show with
which I was connected, we very proudly announced a performing father
and son, Old Man and his youngster, just maturing, Dick. They worked
well together, looked a great deal alike, and obeyed every command
implicitly. Neither of them had ever shown any evidences of epilepsy,
and around the circus we hoped that here would be one case where it did
not occur.
But it wasn’t. The afternoon was hot, the big top crowded. Out came Old
Man and Dick into the steel arena to go through their stunts. But as
the trainer gave the command to Old Man, there arrived the first hint
of trouble. The big leopard merely remained on his pedestal, staring
and “wall-eyed.” The next moment, while the great audience stiffened
with fright, there came a screeching yowl, and Old Man went about eight
feet in the air with the beginning of an epileptic fit. From every
corner of the tent came the announcers, to bawl the news that the beast
was only having a fit and that there was no danger. In the meantime,
Dick, the son, looked on with excited interest, at last to hop from
his pedestal, trot over to his father, look at him, cock his head--and
throw a fit himself!
There they were, a trainer and two leopards, the beasts doing
everything from turning airsets to back-bends, contortionist poses and
flip-flops, the audience yelling for something to be done, and nothing
of the kind possible. It was one of those moments when circus men
wished they’d never gone into the business; but they could do nothing.
The beasts could not be approached; the only thing possible was to wait
for them to “come out of it.” This Dick did in a few moments, looked
around him with a startled meow, then wabbled weakly toward the open
door of the shifting den. But Old Man remained stretched out, his heart
apparently stopped, his appearance giving every evidence of death.
Hurriedly two roughnecks came forward and bundled him into a piece
of canvas, carried him outside the big top, and covered him there,
while within was fevered activity that the big arena might be pulled
down, and acts hurried into the rings and hippodrome track to cause as
much forgetfulness as possible of the unpleasant occurrences. But the
excitement had just begun!
The band was playing, the clowns cavorting, and everything moving
swiftly and pleasantly once more, only to be interrupted, by a
goggle-eyed townsman, who burst under the side wall, leaped across the
hippodrome track and tried his best to climb a center-pole as he yelped
the announcement:
“Gosh! There’s a leopard loose out there!”
Old Man wasn’t dead at all. Instead, he had regained consciousness,
rolled out of his canvas shroud and now was busily trying to kill a
dog. Once more the announcers, ushers and every possible recruit from
the dressing tent were called to assure the audience that there was no
danger while outside the hose cart was brought forward and the stream
turned on the combatants to separate them. Finally they succeeded,
while Old Man was entangled in a tarpaulin, rolled up in its heavy
folds and returned to his cage. He never worked again.
Nor did Dick, his son. The next day both were the victims of another
fit, and at intervals of once or twice a week following. At last Old
Man lay still again, and this time death had come in earnest. Dick
followed him three days later, in spite of everything that menagerie
men and hastily summoned veterinaries could do. Epilepsy among leopards
brooks no obstacle. Its object is death, and it attains always that
which it seeks.
Nor is epilepsy the only thing against which animal men have to
contend. There’s colic, for instance, stomach troubles, “bone-head”
animals which simply can’t seem to grasp the scheme of things, “star
gazers,” or inbred lions afflicted with a curvature of the spine which
makes them stare constantly upward, tigers which eat and eat and
eat, the only result being that all the nourishment seems to go to
their tails, actually weighing them down and sapping their strength
until at last an operation is necessary. There have been instances in
circusdom where a full eight inches of tail has been amputated before
a beast could get any bodily results from his feeding. All in all, the
menagerie man has just about as much to contend with in his charges as
the head nurse of any big children’s institution. Perhaps more. For
in addition to his regular clinic of babies which show up with this,
that or the other detriment, he usually is the “mother” of a varied
assortment of orphans.
Like many a human orphan, the adult result has become extremely
valuable in its little world. One, for instance, was Sultan, now a
prized performer which, through the illness of its mother at the
time of its birth, was neglected by her until human interference was
necessary. The person who interfered was Lucia Zora, famous elephant
and animal trainer, and wife of the menagerie superintendent. For three
months Zora carried her adopted “child” to and from the circus lot
in a covered lunch basket, while the yowling youngster demanded his
bottle--a regulation baby’s nursing bottle--every two hours, the milk
being prepared in the same manner as for a real child.
Nor did night bring any surcease from the care of the infant lion.
Midnight always brought hunger and squalling which awakened the whole
Pull-man where Sultan was supposed to sleep under Zora’s berth, but
where it did everything from chewing up curtains to running off with
the shoes of the actors. At five o’clock in the morning came the same
performance, with the result that Zora spent a good part of the time
when she should have been resting in hauling forth dishes, an alcohol
stove and the inevitable bottle for the feeding of the orphan. For four
months the baby clung to the bottle before he would lap milk. Following
which the lion proved to be a little experiment in environment. Also
an evidence that jungle animals are no different from the human race.
The cave man ate only meat; he knew nothing else. The same with jungle
beasts. During the struggle of the Ringling-Barnum Circus to save the
life of John Daniel, a few years ago, the only thing which sustained
the big ape was beef broth. Yet gorillas are vegetarians. With Sultan,
scion of meat-eating family, there came the time during his two years
of petting when he relished asparagus, bread and butter, buttered
beets, and had a particular liking for strawberries and cream.
During the winter months of those two years he lived in Zora’s
home--or rather, did his best to wreck it, madly swinging on the bottom
of the lace curtains, and once climbing the table cloth and pulling
it to the floor, just at the moment when it was covered with food for
four guests. All of which Zora forgave. But when Sultan sallied forth
one day, killed three pet Belgian hares, two prized White Orpingtons,
and chased a neighbor’s cat through that neighbor’s house, knocking
over chairs, pulling down curtains, sweeping clean the shelves of a
pantry and causing a riot call to police headquarters, Zora decided
that perhaps the best place for a lusty young lion was in a cage in the
menagerie house.
Another famous lion, said by a great many to be the greatest performing
lion in the world, was also a bottle baby, raised by about the same
methods by Mrs. Walter Beckwith, and a member of the Beckwith troupe
of lions which do a great deal of work in the motion-picture studios.
There is one difference, however, and that was the fact that he never
was allowed to grow hungry, nor was any one ever allowed to go near
him at feeding time, which invariably took place within his cage. The
result was that food came to represent to him something which need
not be sought, and which could be found only within a cage; hence the
animal has no thought of it when he is working outside his den and can
be trusted implicitly.
However, for two animals, there is no such thing as surcease from
orphanage, the tiger and the leopard. Both are too frail, too prone to
inherited weaknesses, to survive on artificial feeding. But all this
is overcome by the child hippopotamus, who, once taken from the side
of his hefty mother, demands a nurse, and in no uncertain terms. The
baby hippo, the whole half-ton of him, wants a human companion, and
if he doesn’t get one, right then he lays himself down and literally
bawls himself to death. He won’t eat, he won’t sleep, he won’t play in
the waters of his tank; he just wants a playmate. Incidentally, this
yearning for companionship once caused one of the strangest sights in
the circus world.
Bon was the baby, a bulbous thing of some five hundred pounds when
he arrived from the old home place on the River Nile. The result was
that Bon began to grieve to such an extent that he worked himself into
a state of hysteria, if such a thing can be imagined in a member of
the hog family, to which the hippo belongs. Then one day the crisis
arrived; Bon began to beat his head against the bars, a favorite method
which grieving hippopotami seem to have for committing suicide. That
night Bon was happy. He had a human companion, known by no other name
than Mike--and the world was good again.
The story of Mike and Bon has been told in a previous chapter, for it
is a little instance of the love of a man for a fool beast, and a love
that was returned. Enough that Mike gave his life to save that of the
hippopotamus. But there is one incident that has not been told, the
story of his burial.
The circus bought a lot for Mike in one of the best cemeteries of the
Western town near which his death occurred. The usual “round robin”
went about the circus lot for flowers. There was only one time in which
the show people could pay their last respects to the faithful Mike, and
that came between parade and show time. That morning, the few people in
the big cemetery saw a strange cavalcade turn through the gates of the
burial place, winding among the silent tombstones and mausoleums. The
band men atop the carved wagons playing music strange to the circus;
the lions shifting in their cages; the equestriennes, with their
white, be-ribboned horses, riding beside the hearse; the snares and
bases of the Zouave drum corps muffled and beating in slow time to the
funeral music from the big-top and kid-show bands; the clowns slumped
on the big tableaux--the whole circus, Mike’s beloved circus, with its
colors, its beautiful, mottled parade horses, its cages, its clowns
and couriers and Wild West riders, with Bon whining in his big tank in
dumb wonderment as to what had become of his companion--Mike’s circus
had come to say good-by. And some way, to those who watched, there
was nothing strange about it, nothing incongruous. They were of his
life--a grim, rushing, tumultuous life behind its covering gaudiness,
and neither the paint, nor the spangles, nor glittering colors seemed
to matter.
I’ve often wondered what the conversation would be if a bunch of
menagerie mothers could get together and talk over the various
traits of their children, as humans do. There should be some very
good conversation, for each baby, it seems, has his own particular
temperament and characteristics.
For instance, the matter of play. Even a baby hippopotamus will play,
somewhat after the fashion of a lopsided barrel. An elephant baby is
as mischievous as a young puppy. The only way to keep a monkey baby
from playing is to hogtie him, and tigers, lions, leopards, cheetahs,
jaguars and all the rest of the cat tribe play themselves into
exhaustion. Especially if some kind-hearted keeper has tossed them a
ball of catnip. But for the llama and camel youngsters, there is no
such thing in existence. They know absolutely nothing about play! A
gamboling camel or a frolicking llama would send a menagerie man to the
doctor immediately to ask if he’d been drinking too much.
[Illustration: A SICK BABY ORANG-OUTANG.]
[Illustration: A BABY CAMEL WITH ITS MOTHER, THE “DUMBBELL BABY” OF THE
MENAGERIE.]
Instead, their sole amusement seems to be the gratifying of curiosity:
a trait overdeveloped in childhood which departs entirely when they
are grown. This, coupled with a desire to see how much rubbish, paper,
trash, blankets and old bones their stomachs can stand, appears to
be the only interesting part of childhood. Between the two, the circus
man prefers the llama, for it at least is a gentle, pretty thing with
some intelligence.
As for the baby camel--Here, ladies-s-s-s an’ gents, is the prize fool
of the whole animal kingdom. When Nature devised the camel, somebody
carried away the brains, leaving the finished article, especially in
babyhood, the most idiotic, dunce-like goof that ever struggled about
on four legs. For instance, in the cravings of its curiosity, the baby
camel may walk to a brick wall. It doesn’t go round; it merely stands
there, butting its head against the obstacle, or standing in amazement,
waiting for the wall to move! When it isn’t doing something like that,
it is getting in the way of the horses, the men, the elephants or
anything else that happens to come along, not because it is obstinate,
but simply because it doesn’t know enough to get out of the way. When
that diversion fails to interest, it stands and bawls. Bawls for hours
at a time, apparently taking a wonderful delight in the unmusical
flatness of its voice.
While this is going on, the mother is bawling also for her prize
numskull to come again to her side, a concert which continues for an
hour or so before the child finally understands that somebody who
feeds it desires its company at home. But does the poor idiot obey the
command? It does not. Frantically, and with an added bawling, it goes
to every other member of the camel herd before it finds its own mother!
As a reward for which, the camel mother promptly knocks down her
senseless offspring, spits at it and then bites it on the head,
probably knowing, in her motherly way, that there is less sensitiveness
there than anywhere else!
Another dumb one of the menagerie, although in a different way, is the
baby giraffe. There the dumbness is actual. From the time of birth
until the time of death, not a sound ever comes from the throat of
a giraffe, with the result that the beasts communicate evidently by
some sign language, or by an undiscovered sense of smell, for in some
strange way, the mother warns her baby of danger, and that baby comes
hurrying to her side!
Taken all in all, the giraffe is a peculiar beast anyway. The cages in
which those prized animals of the Ringling-Barnum show are transported
are padded, top, side and bottom, and low enough to almost touch the
ground. All because there’s danger at both ends. The giraffe’s legs are
so long that a troublesome step may break one of them and cause the
beast’s death. The useless horns, with which the giraffe is born, are
united to the skull and so sensitive that a serious injury to one may
mean death also. On top of this, the things are so awkward that they
can stumble and fall while walking on smooth ground! Besides that,
they are so rare and costly to catch and transport that the loss of one
means the dissipation of a young fortune. But there’s one consoling
thought, to the small boy, at least. Giraffes love slippery elm bark.
As for other “freaks,” there are many of them: the zebra, for instance,
which seems to have been born only for lion meat, and which, when a
baby, is abnormally strong, only to weaken as it grows older; the
kangaroo, which isn’t born at all, as a real living thing, but which
comes into the world a mere lump of inanimate flesh, to be lifted by
the mother to the sac of her stomach, and to develop there, until
such time as it is able to shift for itself and to feel the effects
of vanity. For there is no vainer animal living, not even the monkey.
A kangaroo or “wallaby” will remain quiescent all day, until a crowd
gets around its cage. Then like any youngster, it will “show off” until
absolutely worn out.
But to get back to the subject of orphans, there are such things
even in the realm of elephantdom. The prize one was Baby Miracle,
the daughter of Mr. Snyder and Mrs. Mamma Mary. But there seemed
to be something wrong about it all. Because when Baby Miracle, all
two hundred pounds of her, came into being one spring day in winter
quarters at Denver, Colorado, Mamma Mary took one look at what she had
brought into the world, and promptly kicked it across the menagerie
house.
Which was hardly the way to treat a newcomer. The animal men talked it
over, chained the peevish mother fore and aft, and sought a compromise.
They brought Baby Miracle forward to where the mother could get a good
look at her offspring, and by gentle words tried to assure her that
this was her baby and should be treated as such. Mamma Mary took a good
survey this time, then broke her chains and smashed a hole in the side
of the brick building as she made her get-away. By now it was more than
evident that Mamma Mary wasn’t pleased with what she had done. Nor was
Baby Miracle terribly interested. She merely rolled her eyes, wobbled
her bit of a trunk, and squealed in a fashion which might mean anything.
So, while half the menagerie force went forth to corral Mamma Mary, the
other half hid Baby Miracle and decided what should be done. The most
important thing, of course, was food. Fred Alispaw, the superintendent,
got an idea, rushed for a telephone, called the biggest dairy company,
and ordered a milking machine. In the meanwhile, Baby Miracle had given
a squawk or two of disgust and flopped to a pile of canvas, where
it tried to die while three animal keepers massaged it to keep up
circulation and a veterinary gave it a strychnine injection.
[Illustration: BABY MIRACLE, A FEW WEEKS BEFORE SHE DECIDED TO LEAVE
THIS TEMPESTUOUS WORLD.]
[Illustration: LION TRIPLETS.]
By this time Mamma Mary and the milking machine had arrived at the
menagerie house almost simultaneously. The contraption was brought
forth and hooked on, while Mamma Mary rolled her eyes and appeared
to wonder what it was all about. When the thing began to work she
evidently came to some conclusion, celebrating her discovery by kicking
over the machine, knocking down the three men who were endeavoring to
manipulate it, and for good measure overturning a tiger den. Which
added to the general celebration.
In the meanwhile, Baby Miracle was having another sinking spell and
things were becoming serious. The rest of the herd was called into
action to save the baby’s life. Mamma Mary was chained fore, aft,
and sideways to other elephants, each with his trainer to hold him
in place, and the milking machine once more was installed. This time
enough milk was obtained to give Baby Miracle a little confidence
in this turbulent existence into which she had entered, and infant
elephant stock ran higher.
It continued to soar for three days. Then Mamma Mary discovered that
she could strain her muscles to such an extent that the machine could
milk and milk and continue to milk without results. Which she did, and
the machine went back to the dairy company. However, by this time, Baby
Miracle had assumed a sort of don’t-care attitude and was willing
to try anything once. The first was a bottle equipped with a regular
“calf nipple” and filled with a combination of one pint of cow’s milk,
mixed with condensed cream, topped off by a pint of rice gruel, fed
by the pouring system. All of which, it was found, must be heated to
a temperature of 85 degrees. It appears that even baby elephants have
their tastes.
Again everything looked rosy, and after a week or so, an attempt was
made to put the disowned child with the herd. But inasmuch as Mamma
Mary again took a look at her child and knocked down two elephants in
her attempts to murder it, other plans were decided upon. Baby Miracle
was put into a padded cage where she got her bottle and her gruel every
four hours, until she finally refused.
Somebody thought of goat’s milk, and two tuberculin tested goats were
purchased. The goats were willing, but Baby Miracle wasn’t. So the
goats were sold.
Then it was discovered that Baby Miracle liked ice-cream cones, and
there was joy again. The milk in these would be nourishing, and with a
pint or so of boiled rice, things might be better.
But they weren’t. After the menagerie superintendent had poured castor
oil down the child’s throat for a day and a half in an attempt to bring
it back to normalcy, he guessed that he’d better cut out the cones.
There was only one thing left,--the advertised baby foods. All of which
were tried, with results not so good. So, in desperation, Alispaw
experimented again with the original concoction, and Baby Miracle
responded.
All her previous dislike vanished, she was given a nurse from among
the menagerie attendants, who took her for walks by day and slept in
her cage by night. She learned to play with a rope, to amuse herself
by wadding up a mass of hay and throwing it high into the air, while
the watchful Lonnie, her keeper, pried open her jaws after each
experiment to see that she’d gotten none of the nasty stuff in her
throat. But it was all no use. Twenty-three weeks passed in which “the
millionaire baby,” as she was called around the show, received every
attention. Every possible thing was guarded against; the veterinary
passed up other cases to watch the progress of Baby Miracle. Even her
food was weighed, to see how much of it her stomach was assimilating.
In reward for which, Baby Miracle showed up one day with a hacking
cough and passed onward, perhaps the only elephant in captivity to live
twenty-three weeks on a circus without having tasted the delights of a
peanut.
Quite different was the story of Rusty. Baby Miracle weighed two
hundred pounds, got every possible attention and finally was stuffed to
grace the reception room of a big Western newspaper until a heartless
mob came along and carried poor Baby Miracle away to an unknown resting
spot. Rusty weighed about a pound and a half, but he had his own ideas
about getting along in life. He was a tiny rhesus monkey, undersized
even for that species, and the object of torment for the whole cage.
His mother was tubercular; this disease causes the death of nearly
ninety per cent. of the rhesus monkeys brought to this country. She was
too weak to defend it. The result being that Rusty was picked on by
every member of the big cage, bitten, twitted, tormented, even by its
own father. Then, one day, the mother died.
The baby clung to the body of its sole protector until the menagerie
men took the inanimate body away. Then, a tiny mite in the midst of a
horde of ruffians, Rusty strove to stand his ground. In vain. His own
father, one of the “cage bosses,” led in the ruffianism, pulling out
his hair, snarling at him, biting him and slapping him. Rusty went from
grating to grating, from trapeze to bar, while the rest of the cage
followed him, with the exception of one, a female who a month or so
before had lost her own baby. And Rusty, as he fled chattered to her,
grinned at her, then when the tormenting reached its highest pitch,
jumped straight for her, snuggling into her arms.
For a moment she did not respond. But Rusty chattered on. The “cage
bosses”--every monkey house has three or four of these bullies who
appear to take a delight in making life as rough as possible for the
weaker ones--gathered about him, pulling and picking at him, and
incidentally taking a few pokes at the babyless monkey who had allowed
him to come to her arms. For just so long she stood it, her arms
gradually tightening about the little orphan. Then, at last, the mother
nature of her reached the ascendency.
That was a bad day for the bosses. She bit them until their sides were
red with blood. Larger than ordinary and stronger, she knocked them
from one side of the cage to the other, chased them to the trapezes,
and clung by her teeth to any legs that happened to be trailing;
finally she drove the whole outfit into a corner, there to chatter
her defiance to them in a monkey harangue that evidently had some
purpose--and wonderful results. Rusty never was bothered again. What is
more, the stepmother accepted him as her own child, and affectionate
mother and good son--as simians go--they still occupy the monkey house
in peace.
So goes the story of the menagerie kid; but varied as the youthful
occupants of the cages may be, there is one thing in which they share
alike, the kindergarten. Their schooling begins almost the moment
they are able to understand; the fool camel is “halter broke” so his
mother can bite him on the head at will; the lions, tigers, leopards
and other cat animals are taught not to “fight” the feeding fork or
the cage scrapers, by which the dens are cleaned; the monkeys are
taught not to reach between the bars of their cage; the hippopotamus
is brought out of its den as often as possible, so that it will not
shake itself to death in fear of the menagerie crowds--for the hippo
is the most easily frightened of all animals; the elephant is made
“hook-wise,” or taught that the pointed bull-hook is merely a thing
devised to guide it and not something to cause pain; the zebra is
walked time and again past the lion cages to assure him that the
inmates will not kill him, and so it goes throughout the whole list,
each animal being taught the rudiments which he must know before any
kind of arena training can even be considered. Withal, it is a tedious
task, expressed best perhaps by one of the menagerie attendants during
the auspicious advent of Baby Miracle:
“Gosh! I sure wish all these here punk animals could be borned grown
up!”