ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF WILD-ANIMAL TRAINING
The arena has been in use for public spectacles and amusements from
the earliest ages, and its popularity has never diminished. The great
changes, however, which have taken place have developed it into a
civilized, instructive spectacle, instead of a barbarous and cruel
performance presented only for the purpose of exciting men’s passions.
Lions have always played a prominent part in these public amusements
and exhibitions. They were led as trophies in the triumphs of
semi-barbarians, and were exhibited and sacrificed by thousands in the
Roman amphitheater. Six hundred were provided by Pompey for a single
festival. That the lion should always have figured thus in history is
but natural. He is the king of beasts, and though there are other wild
animals more intelligent in some ways, he always has held, and always
will hold, this supremacy over all other brutes.
No wild animals were ever trained by the ancients. It was in turning
the power and superiority of man over animals to financial account that
the art of training wild animals was first conceived, and it was to
further financial gain that it has been advanced step by step since,
though the final development of each step has been made by a small
number of men who have had an inborn love of daring, and an insatiable
desire for the accomplishment of the hazardous.
George Wombwell, from whom I am directly descended, was one of the
first men who saw the great possibilities in the training of wild
animals, although what actually led to the present advanced stage was
the result of chance. Wombwell’s traveling show was established in
England in 1805, and the first wild-animal show, in which the most
ferocious of the large felines were used, was formed three years later.
[Illustration: THE TOWERING OF THE KINGS]
Trained monkeys and many highly trained domestic animals were known
in Europe, but never before had lions and tigers been subjugated to
daily association with men. At that time a traveling show of the
Wombwell type was similar in many respects to the great circuses of
to-day, its chief point of similarity being its amalgamation with a
menagerie. The importation of Asiatic and African animals was, of
course, less frequent and more expensive than now, with the result that
the menageries were smaller and less diversified. The greatest care was
taken of the animals, chiefly on account of their commercial value, but
the proprietors were heavily handicapped by their lack of knowledge
respecting animal ways and requirements.
It was a matter of frequent occurrence to take any little sick cubs
into the family, and nurse and watch over them as one would a sick
child. It was on such an occasion that George Wombwell thought of
training wild animals as a good business speculation. He had just
received two young lions from Africa, and on their arrival they were
found to be in an extremely weak condition from bad feeding, neglect
of cleanliness, and violent seasickness. It was clear that unless the
greatest care and attention were given to them they would very soon
die. Wombwell put one man to attend only to these cubs, watching over
them night and day, and nursing them with all possible care.
The man who lived with these young lions, ministering to their
necessities and comforts, was in daily association with his charges for
several weeks, and in that time acquired a familiarity which lessened
his fear of them. He fed them daily from his own hands, kept them warm
and clean, bedded them with fresh, dry straw morning and evening,
dressed, and finally cured the sores which filth and neglect had caused
on their sides and limbs, and by the time they were once more in good
condition he had developed a strong affection for them.
When he had to leave the lions altogether, he seemed to feel the
separation very much, and the idea suggested itself to Wombwell that
not only would the exhibition of two lions and a man in the same
cage be a distinct novelty, but it would be a splendid financial
speculation. There appeared to be very little, if any, danger, now that
the three had grown accustomed to one another, so that when the man
begged that the association should not be broken, Wombwell told him of
his idea, to which he readily consented. In a few days he announced
to the provincial public that he would exhibit a “lion-tamer,” and
thousands came from near and far to witness this wonderful sight. Such
was the beginning.
That was less than a hundred years ago. Then two sick cubs with a quiet
man sitting between them aroused the curiosity of all England, while
now a man goes into the arena with twenty-seven full-grown male lions
and makes them perform at the same time!
From that first incident, the advance in animal training for exhibition
purposes has been steady. Many things have been done which no one ever
believed could be done; many valuable facts and characteristics about
wild animals discovered which would, in all probability, never have
been known to science otherwise; and a great many lessons learned
as to the wonderful power of man over all the animal creation, if
exercised in the proper manner.
The advance was much slower at the start than it is now, when every
year sees as great improvement in animal training as ten years did a
century ago. It was five years before George Wombwell realized that
it was possible for almost any animal to be trained and handled if he
could only find the right man to do the handling. But that was then,
and is now, a matter of the greatest difficulty.
The progress during the first three quarters of the last century
was very slow. There were various performances in which a man or a
woman entered the arena with wild animals and put them through very
elementary drills; but it was within the last twenty years only that
the involved groups and elaborate tricks of the present day have been
suggested and produced.
Many things were not known formerly respecting the control of animals,
which now form the very first essentials for all trainers, and
accidents were more frequent and more dangerous. One of Wombwell’s
most famous trainers was Ellen Bright, a girl who achieved a great
reputation. Unfortunately, owing to some slight carelessness on her
part, she was killed by a tiger in 1880, when only seventeen years old.
Had she only realized more fully the need of patience and firmness with
wild animals, there is no doubt whatever that the accident which caused
her death would not have taken place.
When it is considered how many trainers there now are, with how many
animals they perform at one time, what difficulties they have to face,
not only with such numbers, but with such diverse creatures naturally
so antagonistic to one another, as in the case of the mixed groups, and
how comparatively few accidents happen, it can be readily understood
how far this science has progressed.
Perhaps of all the types of animal training these mixed groups are the
most wonderful. Lions and tigers instinctively hate each other, and in
their native state look with contempt on jackals and hyenas. Were a
lion and a tiger to meet in the jungle, it would mean a fight to the
death. If two or more male lions meet in their native haunts, a fierce
fight is the natural sequence, until only one is left to bear witness
by his scars and tears of the terrible battle which has been fought.
Should a jackal or a hyena see the king of beasts, he skulks around
until his majesty has finished his meal, and then sneaks forward to
take the leavings.
And yet, in these mixed groups, lions, tigers, hyenas, sloth-bears,
polar bears, and Tibet bears are all together in the same arena; one
sits quietly on his pedestal while another goes through his act; the
lion has to associate with the hyena; and in some cases two animals,
naturally antagonistic to each other, and coming from far corners of
the globe, perform together without even showing that they object, and
have been subjected to this gross indignity by the superiority of man.
It took Herman Weedon years of patient and painstaking toil and trouble
to bring his group to its present state of perfection. The hardest task
of all is to accustom animals of one kind to tolerate the presence of
animals of another kind. There is always the danger of a fight, which
between two wild animals generally ends in the death of one or the
other, and the trainer has to consider the interests of his employer as
well as the great risk to his own life.
In arranging a mixed group, each animal has to be studied carefully;
his idiosyncrasies must be humored, his characteristics must be known
and ever borne in mind; the animosity between the wild beasts must be
taken into careful consideration, and the methods of teaching must
vary with each animal according to its special traits. It means years
of patient effort, because it is practically training animal nature
against its instincts, and the final result of amity, or assumed amity,
between such antagonistic forces is for this reason one of the greatest
proofs of the extent of man’s power over wild animals.