CHAPTER IIICHARACTER 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 winterquarters 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 lionby 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 cannotknow 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.
INDIGESTION MAKES A LION VICIOUS IN THE ARENANDIGESTION MAKES A LION VICIOUS IN THE ARENAINDIGESTION MAKES A LION VICIOUS IN THE ARENA.
INDIGESTION MAKES A LION VICIOUS IN THE ARENA.
INDIGESTION MAKES A LION VICIOUS IN THE ARENA.
NEVER TRY TO DO THIS IF THE LION HAS A HEADACHENEVER TRY TO DO THIS IF THE LION HAS A HEADACHE.
NEVER TRY TO DO THIS IF THE LION HAS A HEADACHE.
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 shouldbe 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 thepoor 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 somethingnew, 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 fedthe 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’soften 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 thewhole 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!
BABY WILD CATS, AND THEY LOOK THEIR PARTBABY WILD CATS, AND THEY LOOK THEIR PART.
BABY WILD CATS, AND THEY LOOK THEIR PART.
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 itscrambled 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 everythingabout 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 possessedalso 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. Forseveral 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 ofthe 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 hereditaryenemy. 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.
REPRESENTATIVE CIRCUS DOGSREPRESENTATIVE CIRCUS DOGS.
REPRESENTATIVE CIRCUS DOGS.
REPRESENTATIVE CIRCUS DOGS.
Just as a warning, if you are a father or mother, and you decide some time to take your baby to thecircus, 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 constantdanger 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!”