IN THE STEEL ARENA
“Congo”, a giant Koolakamba of the ape family, had been on a rampage
for hours. And with Congo that meant trouble. Seven feet tall,
measuring from his funny, crooked feet to his upraised, twisted hands;
with great, canine tusks that could rip and tear like the thrust of a
sabre, Congo was something to regard with care when he revolted against
the confinement of his heavy, steel-barred cage, and roared forth his
ultimatums of rebellion.
And he was on a rampage. Twice he had knocked over his three-ton cage,
only to raise it again with a sweep of one great arm as the whip of
the trainer cut about his face and neck. The heavy log chain which
encircled his throat strained and clanked. Finally, as the whip cut
deeper, one broad, black hand went swiftly upward, caught the whip
and jerked it from the trainer’s hand. The loose lips parted from
ugly incisors. One crunch of the jaws and the whip had become only a
shapeless mass. Then, small eyes gleaming maliciously, black hands
weaving slowly before the bulging chest, Congo strained harder than
ever at his chain, the bellowing roars sounding louder and louder in
the approaching mania of absolute revolt. The trainer whirled.
“Hasn’t Mrs. Wright shown up yet?” he asked anxiously.
“Not yet—wait a minute—think she’s just coming in the door.”
“Good!”
The trainer turned from his charge as the form of a woman showed in the
door of the winter quarters where Congo was being housed for a month
before the opening of the circus season. He smiled weakly and waved a
hand.
“Do you mind trying to do something with him?” he asked. “Mr. Wright
went downtown and—I guess he’s scared of me.”
“Of course he is.” A black-haired, black-eyed woman, the wife of the
man who had reared Congo from a tiny “punk”, who had cared for the
beast ever since the day it was purchased from the captain of a Cape
Lopez freighter, came hurriedly forward. Congo howled at her as he
had howled and roared at the trainer. But she paid no attention. He
snarled. But a moment later he was cooing with apelike delight. The
woman had gone straight to his cage, put an arm about his neck, and was
stroking his face as one would stroke the face of a baby! Congo was
mollified,—and by a woman!
“That was the whole trouble,” she said, as chairs were brought forward,
and the big ape seated himself beside her with one arm about her neck,
“he was just frightened. He didn’t know you, and he was scared. See?
He’s not afraid of me. Congo—give me a big hug! There, that’s it.”
The tremendous arm, its muscles capable of raising three tons in
leverage from the ground, grasped tight at the shoulders of the woman.
The heavy, ugly lips pursed. A cooing sound came from them, then, like
some big, ugly boy, the seven-foot ape laid his head on the shoulder
of his mistress, sighed, and was content,—because he no longer was
afraid. In that lies the secret of animal training; in that lies the
explanation of the fact that in many an instance a woman can tame a
wild beast when a man has failed; a woman can subjugate an arena full
of lions or tigers or leopards when the entrance of a man might mean
a combined assault and the horrible moments which come when the caged
jungle beasts realize their superiority. For it is the truth—hard as it
may be to swallow—that it is not the person within the steel arena who
is afraid, but the beast! The cat animals, the chimpanzee, the elephant
all have fear in their hearts. And the gentleness of womankind can best
soothe this fear and allay it. Hence the fact that nearly every circus
which travels here and there about the country through the summer
months has one woman who performs in the steel arena, who is heralded
as “the lady of the iron nerves” and “a person born without fear”, when
the truth of the matter is merely the fact that she knows enough to
gain the confidence of the beasts under her care, and to assure them
that they are friends, that there is nothing to fear on either side!
A realm apart in the circus world is that of the woman who trains
the “cats” or feline beasts which perform in the big, steel arena,
the large, lubberly elephants, or ostriches, or even the grunting,
slow-thinking, piglike hippopotamus. She occupies an entirely different
sphere from that of the equestrienne, the contortionist, or the
acrobat. Her mode of life, her work, her dangers—even her entry into
the circus world—all are different. She is made, not born; she is
herself trained, even as the animals under her supervision are trained,
and her mental equipment must be far greater than that of the woman
who swings on the high trapeze, or does a “perch act” during the
“mixed aerial number” of the circus. They need know only the laws of
equilibrium and of health and strength.
I stood one day during the training season, watching the efforts of a
woman animal trainer, as she sought to force a leopard to its pedestal.
Time after time she touched it with the whip, not viciously, not
cruelly, but merely with sufficient force to tell it that she was in
command and that she wanted a certain thing accomplished. The leopard
hissed and roared. Its ugly teeth bared and it fought the whip with
vicious, boxerlike thrusts of its claw-studded paws as though it were
a living enemy. For fifteen minutes the contest continued, while the
leopard grew more and more intractable. At last, the woman curled
her whip, stood thoughtful a moment and then, with a sudden resolve,
dropped her weapon, and, one hand extended, began to move ever so
slowly toward the hissing, crouching beast.
Literally inch by inch she made the journey, while the leopard weaved
and twisted before her, hissing, growling, evidently awaiting the first
untoward move by the trainer before it leaped in attack. But that move
did not come. At last they were separated by only a few feet,—then even
this space narrowed. A hand went out and touched the cringing coat of
the feline beast, while it writhed and yowled, too surprised either
to attack or to run. For a long moment after that, the woman did not
move. Then, slowly, gently, she began to caress the beast, patting it,
tickling it behind the ears, stroking its fur as one would stroke some
giant house cat. The growling ceased. The glare left the eyes. The
woman moved even closer. Another moment, while the hand played gently
about the beast’s head. Then—
“Tony!”
She had moved away and was calling to the menagerie superintendent.
That person hurried forward.
“Anything wrong?” he asked, peering between the bars of the arena,
as he watched her open the door which would allow the spotted cat to
return to its cage. She nodded.
“Plenty. No wonder I couldn’t work the poor thing. It’s got an
ulcerated tooth!”
The leopard went back into its cage, to receive the rough but
well-intentioned services of the menagerie men as they first lashed it,
then gave the injections of cocaine which would deaden the pain until
the refractory tooth could be pulled, and its agony alleviated. The
woman turned to me.
“You’ve got to know more than how to whip an animal to be a trainer,”
she explained, with a laugh. “I thought something was wrong from the
way that cat was acting. But I couldn’t tell what it was until I got
close. Then I saw the swelling in the jaw—and touched it. Did you
notice how it winced? After that it was easy.”
“I didn’t know—”
“That they had aches and pains? Why not? A horse has them, doesn’t it?
Or a house dog? Why shouldn’t a jungle animal? Perhaps it’s because I’m
around them more than I am domestic animals, but there are times when
I believe they are nearer human beings when it comes to ailments than
even our pets. Just for instance—”
She led the way down the line of permanent cages to where a
three-months-old lion cub was yowling at the bars. A leather collar was
around its neck, while a small chain hung near by. She opened the cage
door and brought the yowling beast forth, then attached the chain.
“Come along, Honey,” she urged. “Time for your walk. Never get over
your troubles unless you walk them off. There,” she cajoled, as the
limping, yowling little puff of fur settled on its haunches and sat
crying pitifully, “I know it hurts—but that’s what I’m trying to get
rid of for you. Come along!”
I noticed the cub then; its legs were stiff and knotty! every step
seemed one of agony. The trainer nodded.
“Rheumatism,” came her explanation. “It’s an inbred, the child of a
brother and sister. The same rules apply to it that apply to human
beings. A child under these circumstances would be weak and sickly. So
are animals. It’s rare for one of them ever to amount to anything, but
we’ve got to try to salvage what we can. This one could hardly move two
weeks ago. Now it can walk all the way around the menagerie house.”
“After all,” she said, as we strolled along, the cub lion thumping
painfully in our wake, “it’s a great deal like teaching school,—this
animal-training business. Perhaps the simile appeals more to me for the
simple reason that I once was a school-teacher. A far jump? Not at all.
I dealt then with human children and taught them readin’, writin’, and
’rithmetic. Here I deal with animal children and teach them to jump
through a hoop, or leap over hurdles. And all the time I am struck by
the similarity of my problems.”
“For instance, in the schoolroom you must figure out your pupils. There
are the ones who are afraid of you, simply because you are a teacher,
and you can’t give them any advancement until you can conquer that
fear. It is the same in the steel arena. Now and then you will find an
animal that has been mistreated on some other circus, and who has been
started out under a cruel trainer, who believed in beating the beast
half to death to obtain his results. Naturally, when that animal faces
you, it is a lunatic through fear. It believes your main object is to
try to kill it, and naturally it intends to fight back with every bit
of strength and power it possesses. And not until you can assure that
beast that your idea is kindliness—coupled with firmness—and that its
lot will be easy so long as it does what is required of it, can you
really begin to train it. Isn’t that a parallel for the child who has
been beaten for not getting his lessons, who has been bullied, and who
has been taught that his instructor is an ogre instead of a friend?”
“Then, too, there are the defectives, just like this cub I’m leading
around. However, this is a mild case. Here.” We stopped in front of a
cage, and the trainer moved close to the bars. The result was a wild,
screeching roar from the lion within. A leap, and the beast had sought
the farthest corner, huddling there, hissing, its eyes gleaming, its
jaws wide and threatening.
“Acts like a crazy person—with hallucinations,” I said.
“That’s because he _is_ crazy,” came the answer. “Crazy as any lunatic
that ever was confined in an asylum. He’s an inbred too; it went to his
mind. You can see absolute terror in his every action. He hasn’t enough
brain-balance to be taught that he is safe in the company of humans.
Therefore it’s impossible to train him. He’s only a menagerie lion, and
he’ll never be anything else. He’d kill a trainer the minute he was let
loose in the arena, not because he’s naturally a murderer, but because
he would fully believe that his life was in danger unless he could slay
his enemy before that enemy could slay him. So you see,” and there was
a little laugh, “when we work an act in the steel arena, it’s a good
deal like the last day of school. We pick our pupils to provide the
entertainment.”
And the next time you’re around the circus, seek out some one among the
animal men and ask him why all the caged beasts aren’t workers. He may
not give the reason with the same discernment as the ex-school-teacher.
But the theory behind it will be just the same.
Strange that a school-teacher should turn animal trainer? Not at all.
Inquire into the past of Lucia Zora, billed as “the bravest woman in
the world”, and you’ll find that at one time she was a member of the
Russian Ballet. Ask Mrs. Henry Boucher about the days of her past, and
she’ll tell you that she was a seventeen-year-old girl assistant to
the wardrobe woman of a small circus before she went into the business
of training elephants. Mlle. Adgie, one of the most famous of woman
animal trainers, occupied a position far remote from lions and tigers
before she took up the life of the steel arena. In a wild animal
circus which winters on the Pacific Coast is Mabel Stark, whose act
is that of wrestling a tiger. Six hundred pounds it weighs; yet every
day, within the arena, she struggles with it as one would struggle
with a human being; she mauls it about, slaps it, throws it from her,
dances around the arena with it, and goes through the every motion
of a rough-and-tumble bout. Nor is it some toothless, aged old beast
that has neither the strength nor the inclination to object. The only
time it ever missed a performance was when a careless animal man
placed another tiger in the same den with it. One leap, a crunching
attack,—and the other beast was dead! With any other animals it is a
murderer. With Miss Stark it is only a playful cat, ready to do her
bidding. Yet Miss Stark can count on her fingers the years she has been
training animals. Before that she had never been nearer them than the
ordinary spectator.
All this in support of the statement that the woman animal trainer
is made and not born, as is the case with the usual performer of the
circus. You will find in the equestrienne the descendant of a long line
of riders. Her mother before her was a rider, and her grandmother,
even back to the fourth and fifth generation. She is trained to the
“rosinback”, as the ring horse is called, from the moment she is
large enough to sit upon it. From her birth she is destined to become
a rider; her thoughts are never elsewhere. It is the same with the
acrobat. Stroll into the “big top” of the circus following the matinée
performance, and you will find every ring clustered with fathers and
mothers teaching their offspring the tricks and stunts which have given
them a living beneath the canvas tents of the circus, training them
from youth that the children may take their places and carry on the
family name when they are gone. But with the animal trainer, all is
different. She steps into the game in maturity; she trains for it as
one would take a college course for some profession.
Usually it comes about through marriage. A girl of the circus, or even
of the outside world, marries one of the menagerie men and travels
with the show. She knows nothing of acrobatics, she is unable to
accomplish the trapeze or riding feats which require bodily training
from childhood, and yet she has the ambition to do something more than
merely to ride in parade, or to form a part of the “grand, glittering
and magnificent introductory spectacle.” And so she naturally turns to
the menagerie, where her husband perhaps works. She learns the habits
of the animals, their ailments, their idiosyncrasies. And, sooner or
later, the day inevitably arrives when she begs her husband for the
privilege of going into the arena with him when he works one of the
various animal acts. The thrill has gotten into her blood. Once within
the arena, she seldom leaves. In fact, soon after that first visit,
the husband turns his attention to the general work of the menagerie,
the care of the animals, the inspection of the cages, and the hundred
and one other duties which he has been forced to neglect while he
“worked” the animals. Some one else has taken his place; some one who
seems to have far greater success than he; some one whom the animals
obey with an implicit sort of faith, and who is far less nervous,
far less fidgety and far less regardful of the possible dangers of
the arena than ever he had been. There are many business men who say
that their wives can drive the family car far better in the congested
traffic of a city than they; their minds are free for that one purpose,
they concentrate upon it, while the man may be attempting to figure
out a business deal and listen for the whistle of the traffic cop at
the same moment. It is the same with a woman in the animal arena.
Once within the steel bars, the world goes by without a thought from
her. The entire concentration of mind is upon those beasts, and the
animals seem to know it. In the circus, it is the animal act performed
by a woman that gets the greatest applause, and mostly because it is
deserved.
Gentleness, too, is one of the reasons why animals are trained more
swiftly by the feminine occupants of the arena, for it is through the
conquering of fear that the beast itself is conquered. When an animal
learns that, while it may be the subject of an overlord in the form of
a trainer, it has nothing to fear in the way of bodily harm, it can be
counted upon as a working animal, and not before. So long as the animal
lives in fear, so long is it dangerous. But when that fear is gone—
“I’m all right now,” said the wife of Captain Ricardo, an animal
trainer, one day as she stood in an arena with a new lion which was
in the third week of its instructions, “I’ve got him eating out of my
hand!”
“Literally, or figuratively?” I asked.
[Illustration: “I’VE GOT HIM EATING OUT OF MY HAND!” _Page 172._]
“Judge for yourself,” came her answer, as a strip of meat was tossed to
her by an attendant from without. Then slowly she went forward toward
the half-cringing beast, balancing itself upon a property “barrel.” She
held forth the meat. The lion hesitated, turned as though to run, swung
slowly back again, and with mincing jaws reached out for the food. The
hand of the woman was not eight inches from the beast’s fangs, but
that hand was unharmed. The lion had realized that this person was not
an enemy, but a friend; that it was being rewarded for the fulfillment
of a task. The battle of training had been won.
But don’t misunderstand. Lions or tigers—or any other dangerous feline
beasts—are not trained by handing them pieces of meat. It is an
entirely different process; harmless, but effective. And those first
days of primary training, strangely enough, are the safest of all for
the woman who desires to introduce new beasts to the intricacies of a
trained act.
Within the cage, the beast is tied and trussed long enough for a heavy,
leather strap to be passed about its body and securely fastened. To
this is attached a rope which runs outside, through the top of the
arena, and there through a pulley to the hands of waiting animal men.
Then the beast is allowed to go through the opened door from its den
to the arena, while the woman who is to make a “working animal” of
it awaits, armed only with a whip and a revolver loaded with blank
cartridges,—the last resort in case of emergency, should the rope or
belt break.
The first instinct of the beast is to leap—at an enemy. It obeys the
call of fear and lunges, but in vain. Outside, the men have pulled on
the rope leading to the leather belt. Instead of striking against the
human target, the beast finds itself clawing and twisting aimlessly
in midair, while the thing it fears still stands, a few feet away,
unharmed, and making no move toward it.
A wait of a few seconds and it is lowered, only to leap again and to
find itself once more suspended harmlessly. Again and again, until
finally there comes the time when it neglects to leap, and instead,
seeks refuge in running. But once more the “mechanic”, as the belt and
rope are called, interferes. It stops, and hissing, awaits the approach
of the enemy.
Thus the first battle has been won. Gradually, by aid of light touches
with the whip, the trainer forces the animal in the direction she
desires him to go. Slowly she directs him to a pedestal, and in the
efforts at escape, the beast leaps upon it. The first step in training
has been accomplished. The beast has found that through some strange
power, which must come from the trainer herself, it is unable to
attack her. Naturally, its unfunctioning brain cannot understand the
mechanical principles of the rope and belt, and the men outside the
arena, who pull upon it. It simply attributes this invulnerability
to attack to the trainer herself and realizes a helplessness in her
presence. It consequently retreats, hearing certain commands as it
does so. The constant repetition of this teaches it first to mount a
pedestal, then to leap over hurdles and finally to do all the things
which are seen during a “cat” act in the performance of a circus.
At first it does this all through fear. But gradually, as the days
pass, it finds that the woman neither molests it nor annoys it so long
as it follows the rote in which it is being trained. The result is a
confidence, yes, even a spirit of friendship. The hiss of a lion in
the arena is not nearly as vicious as it sounds.
With elephants, of course, the proceeding is different. There, the
woman who trains them merely has to improve upon instructions already
given, for the great mammals usually come to this country already
trained. In the first place, practically every working elephant comes
from India. The African elephant, as a rule, is a vicious, sullen
outlaw, unamenable to kindness or to teachings. The Indian, on the
other hand, has been accustomed to human beings all its life. It has
worked in the compounds of India at such tasks as carrying logs, or
hauling wagons, and it understands the superiority of human kind. From
there it usually is taken to some training menagerie, where it is given
another course of instructions in the primary things required by a
circus, this usually happening in Germany. After that, it arrives in
America; and the training which follows is usually only an elaboration
of the rudiments it already has learned. But at that, it’s a good,
hard job. If you don’t believe it, select for yourself some day a nice
herd of, say, ten elephants, weighing from one to three tons apiece,
and try to do the things that you’ve seen the woman trainer do in the
circus,—such as swinging on the trunks of two of them, upraised some
ten feet above the ground, while the rest of the herd forms a tableau
in the background. And at the same time, smile and make a few bows to
the audience. It isn’t so terribly easy!
Nor is the task of any animal trainer, man or woman, a simple job.
There are many things to know, many things which require constant
vigilance, neglect of which may bring death! An animal with an
ulcerated tooth is not the same tractable beast as when in good health
and humor. I once saw a woman escape from the arena after the last
blank cartridge had been fired from her revolver straight into the
eyes of an attacking Bengal tiger, causing it to halt and wheel, not
three feet from her. And in that instant of indecision she whirled
through the steel gate and was safe. It was puzzling: the fact that
the most faithful, the hardest working tiger of all her group should
suddenly “go bad” and rebel against her every effort to make it obey
her commands. In truth, it was a mystery to every one, until the tiger
had been taken back to its cage, strapped, and a minute examination
made of its teeth and feet. In the latter was the cause found. A claw
had turned and was growing straight into the flesh. The foot was
swollen and sore. Well, perhaps at some time in your life you’ve had an
ingrowing toe nail? That was what was wrong with the tiger, on a larger
scale, of course. And it made him just ugly enough to want to kill
somebody. He nearly succeeded.
Indigestion, too much feeding, under-feeding, lack of rest, exposure
during some run of the circus in the early months of fall, when the
wind whips along the train and chills the animals unless the dens are
properly covered; excess of heat on hot days, bad water,—all these
things may have their effect within the steel arena. More than that,
the emotions must be taken into consideration, even to gratitude.
On one of the traveling carnivals of the country is an animal act which
contains one leopard that is by far the best performer of the whole
group. The woman who displays the act, the wife of its owner, can do as
she pleases with that one cat. If it doesn’t obey the command to mount
its pedestal, she neither whips it nor rails at it. She simply walks
swiftly and firmly to it, seizes it by the nape of the neck and _lifts_
it into place. If it growls at her, she cuffs it with her open hand and
scolds it as one would scold a house cat. She knows that nothing she
can do can displace the affection in the heart of that great, spotted
feline beast. And of course, there is a story behind it.
It was in the autumn, and the carnival was rounding out its season
in the south, only to be caught in a “norther”, one of those sudden
descents of ice-cold rain which freezes the moment it strikes the
ground. The train was on the move before the dens could be shrouded in
canvas and filled with straw to give the necessary warmth to the jungle
animals, and one of the leopards, an intractable, hateful beast that
had absolutely refused to respond to every effort at subjugation, had
become chilled,—with the inevitable result of pneumonia. The owner went
rather disconsolately to his wife.
“Going to lose that Beauty cat,” he announced. “Pneumonia.”
Woman nature came to the surface.
“But aren’t you doing anything for it?”
“That cat? I should say not; it’d tear you to pieces the minute you
went into the cage.”
“Not if it’s sick—I shouldn’t think—” Then there was a pause. “I’m
going to try it, anyway.”
Against the protestations of her husband, she made her preparations.
Cloths were cut. Liniments and hot packs were made ready. Then,
surrounded by men with feeding forks, flanked by her husband with a
revolver, she made her entrance into the cage. The leopard hissed
at her and sought to rise. Impossible—the ravages of fever and of
disease prevented. Closer the woman went and applied the packs. As the
befanged mouth was opened, she poured medicine down the red throat. The
leopard did not resist,—through sheer inability to summon the necessary
strength. It was the beginning of a week’s vigil.
Gradually the cat came to know that this person who stayed beside him
day and night was there for the purpose of relief. There was comfort in
the heat of those packs; the medications allayed the pain and brought
easier breathing. The time came when the eyes of the beast followed her
as she left the cage and watched for her until she returned. Recovery
set in, but with it there was no recurrence of the hissing and roaring
and rebellion against the association of a human. One day the husband
came beside the cage to find the great, emaciated cat asleep, its head
pillowed in the lap of the woman. Health came at last, and with it the
announcement from the wife that she intended to train the hitherto
untrainable beast. Into the arena they went. Five minutes later, she
had tossed aside her whip and was directing the beast by hand, lifting
it to the pedestals and down again, or catching it by the loose skin of
its neck and guiding it from one side of the arena to the other. That
was four years ago. And in all that time, not one hiss of anger has
ever come from that leopard’s throat!