Courtney Ryley Cooper

“ With the Barnum and Bailey Circus is a quiet gentle-voiced man who has been the keeper of the show’s big herd of elephants for more than a quarter of a century, while his aid at the head of the herd is an ancient lady of some eighty-five summers who can read his every intonation, his every command, and who forces her will upon the rest of the herd, or knows the reason why! In elephantdom there appears to be a certain respect for superiority; the leader of the herd attacks with impunity any beast under her control, no matter how fierce it may be, how big or how favored in fighting proclivities. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Back in childhood days, when I had been a runaway clown with a small, tatterdemalion circus, the menagerie had consisted of one lion, vicious to the extreme and permanently blinded by blows from a leaden-tipped whip, and three scarred and scurvy-appearing leopards which hated humans with enthusiastic passion, and which eventually accomplished their much desired ambition of killing the trainer who had beaten them daily for years. ”

“ Within the car, the skinner had wrapped the silent form of Ragsy in his coat and laid it tenderly in his bunk on the deck above, to rest there until such time as the labors of the circus might give him a chance to bury her. That night, the show at last placed upon the lot, the skinners gathered, silent, hesitant men, talking in a low tone as though they were in the presence of human death instead of that of only an animal. ”

“ To tell the truth, clamping on the emergencies is about the most frequent thing about the circus when the elephants are concerned. No one ever is able to tell what they’re going to do, or when they’re going to do it. Their prankishness runs the whole gamut of everything that ever entered the head of a ten-year-old boy; their curiosity is worse than that of a monkey; and their uncertainty is as widespread as that of the proverbial flighty woman. Which leads to the adventure of Alice and the tin can. ”

“ It is not the person he seeks!
That tiger is a killer. He has murdered four other cat animals, two lions and two tigers, yet if the woman he awaits should appear, she could tie a cord string about his neck and lead him around the tent in perfect safety.
He is one of the few wrestling tigers in captivity. Twice a day for two years, in the steel arena, his claws unguarded, his great jaws unmuzzled, this four hundred-pound Bengal wrestled in almost human fashion with Mabel Stark, the woman who had raised him from cubhood, and whom he loved with a genuine affection. ”

“ One hears little of the dogs which run away with a circus, and yet there is a set formula about the menagerie, a question asked almost daily:
“Shall we watch for a mutt to-day?”
Because there is hardly a day in which some dog does not attempt to “join out,” and through his own efforts, seek to attach himself to the show. For all of it there is a reason. If there is one thing that a dog loves, it is horses. If there is another, it is the sound of a band. And if there is a third, it is a general air of excitement and hurly-burly. ”

“ When one elephant is frightened and another isn’t, the calm member soothes the companion by a soft announcement which carries a low and expressive note. To say nothing of the love lullaby—and, an elephant in love is as thorough about the matter as a sixteen-year-old boy—the fear signal, the danger signal, the warning chirrup which inevitably gives the announcement of an impending stampede ”

“ Human companionship often does not appeal to them. But the friendship of animals is a different thing. Perhaps it is because they can talk to these beasts during the long hours of the night, as the circus train rocks along on its journey from town to town, knowing that their confidences will not be revealed. Nevertheless, the fact remains that more than one workman has been left behind in an alien burial ground, with no close human friend to know of his death, and with only a lion or tiger or elephant to watch for a companion who never again appears. ”

“ Faith—and no reward, save the glitter and [141] spangles, and blaring of bands; the noise of the big top, the confusion of the midway; that, it seems, is all that the circus dog wants. And, too, that love seems to be in the heart of every dog; the parade is always a conglomeration of “houn’s,” traveling in the wake of the clown band wagon, or trotting beside the horses. Nor is it necessary that the show be an outdoor affair—just so it is a circus! ”

“ No one except a circus man really understands the importance of a dog to an elephant herd. It means as much as steam gauge to a boiler, or a steering wheel to an automobile. If there is anything in the world that an elephant loves, it is to become frightened. The old story of the mouse and the elephant is true to a certain extent, and the thing of things with which to shake an elephant absolutely from his foundations is a dog. ”

“ Woeful is the life of the subject elephant that defies Old Mom, ancient though she may be. Well past the hundred-year mark in age, dependable when every other bull of the picket line is frantic, there is one failing; Old Mom is a disciplinarian to the point of being a martinet. More than that, she is as foolish in her likes as a person in second childhood, and her favorite is the worst trouble-maker of the whole herd! ”

“ It is a long, patient progress, in which the trainer, if he is a good one, grits his teeth to hold his temper and smiles many and many a time when he would like to swear. He has three jobs which must be synchronized into one objective—to teach the animal that there is nothing to fear from this strange human who has suddenly made his entry into the beast’s life, to plant certain routines into the beast’s mind, and to place there at the same time the knowledge that, for doing these things, the animal is to be rewarded. ”

“ With it all, the life of a bull-keeper is a thing of constant gambling. He has none of the assurances with which the performers of other beasts are blessed; the lion or tiger trainer has his cages, and the knowledge that even should a vicious cat escape, a bullet or two from a heavy-calibered revolver at close range can finish him. It takes a steel-jacketed army bullet to make an elephant even realize he’s being shot! ”

“ On the contrary he swears at it, at the hardships, the weather, the long jumps, the longer hours, and everything else connected with the life of his canvas world. In the same fashion he swears at the elephants, for their prankishness, for their prowling proclivities, for their temperamental natures, their appetites, their inclination to rampage at the slightest provocation, and for the very fact that they’re elephants. But nevertheless he’ll fight for them almost as soon as he’ll fight for the circus itself, because he loves them, and because he knows them. ”

“ Whistles shrilled on the circus lot, bull-men ran for fast horses, animal attendants rushed wildly from their work in the menagerie to scurry forth upon a path of broken fences, disabled back yards, uprooted saplings and what-not, while far in the distance Alice still plunged on, the can still clinging to its victim, like a cream pitcher on the head of a cat. ”

“ The man in circus demand is the person who knows enough to stand at one side and watch, then take advantage of what he has seen.
Which explains perhaps a sight many circus-goers have noticed—of a herd of young elephants romping in the mud of a show-lot, and an interested group of men standing at one side, cataloguing every move. Mud makes elephants actors. From a beginning of mud and rain come the balance artists of the elephant herd, the dancers, the “hootchie-kootchie” experts, and the comedians. All for the reason that mud to an elephant is like catnip to a lion or tiger. ”

“ Billy, to Old Mom, is a little angel. He can do no wrong. To the rest of the herd he is an obnoxious, selfish, obtrusive little devil that can do no right. They hate him. But they submit, rather than feel the thump of Old Mom’s trunk, [246] or the pile-driver impact of her hard skull. Winter quarters or the road, it is all the same. Old Mom has taught her little angel her secrets of escape, with the result that he wanders the elephant line at will, in spite of stakes, bonds or even keepers. Old Mom’s protection of Billy extends to humans, and the runt does as he pleases. ”

“ 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 ”

“ To-day a plug of tobacco is a titbit for any elephant, and more than once is a visitor’s pocket ransacked by an inquiring trunk searching for a chew. Elephants eat tobacco just as they eat sugar cane or pop corn or peanuts or candy. To them it is a delicacy. Nor is the taste confined only to chewing tobacco; if you’ll keep your eyes open the next time you go to a circus you may even see elephants shooting snipes, where visitors have dropped their cigar butts along the picket line. ”

“ There is no braver beast than an elephant, and no greater coward; no better friend and no worse enemy. Injure an elephant when he is a baby, combine the thought of pain with the idea of work, and some day it all will come back in a furious, thundering engine of destruction that not only wrecks the circus, but signs his own death warrant. Bad elephants must be killed; and when that happens a circus checks off anything from $4000 to $10,000 on the wrong side of the ledger.
Therefore, the early training of a pachyderm is a delicate affair. ”

“ The farmer’s boy and the boy of the city not large enough to support a zoo get their first sight of the lion, the tiger, the elephant and giraffe and hippopotamus in a circus menagerie. With that, there comes the inevitable human attribute of making comparisons—and following that, study comes easier. It’s much more pleasant to read in the newspaper about some one you know, than it is to read about some one wholly abstract. The same is true of animals. After a person has seen the tigers in a circus, he wants to know more of them. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The house-cat instinct to play runs through every jungle feline. A fluttering piece of canvas outside the den will offer a constant temptation to paw and [153] tear at it; yet I have seen a leopard disregard a thing like this for hours, seemingly paying no attention to it, until the meal call comes from the cookhouse and the menagerie is deserted of attendants. Whereupon it will sneak forward, play with the canvas until it notes a returning animal man, when it will halt and once more drop back into its usual position, as though that tantalizing bit of canvas were nothing whatever in its life. ”

“ Night came, and the dog was restored to the den, to hurry to its strange cage-mate and frolic about it, while the kangaroo gave a greeting equally effusive. It was the beginning of a routine which progressed to such an extent that there came the time when the performer had only to release the dog from its chain in the dressing tent and turn to her work of packing, safe in the knowledge that Dingy would take a straight line for the menagerie and the kangaroo cage, there to stand and bark until some attendant opened the door and lifted him within. ”

“ More than once Old Mom has been known to halt in her labors on the show-lot that she might eye carefully the elephant which is working with her, or pretending to work. The best little trick that an elephant knows is to place its head within about an eighth of an inch of a wagon and pretend to push, while really not exerting an atom of effort. It often fools the bull-men. ”

“ In vain the menagerie men sank their bull-hooks into the ears of [221] the plunging charges, then, bobbing about like so many plummets, strove in vain to hold the beasts in line. Even Old Mom, the head of the herd, had become panicky with the rest, not from fear of the storm but from the fright caused by the sight of that twisting, writhing side wall as it had shown for an instant in the glare of the lightning. To the elephants it represented some unknown bellowing monster about to attack; the unexplained thing always means trouble in an elephant herd. So the stampede had begun. ”

“ But the lion will not be tamed. Gradually he forces the trainer backwards, closer, closer; now he has him in a corner and crouches to leap; now the trainer edges forth into a new chance for life, only to be re-cornered by the bloodthirsty beast; to be almost chewed to pieces, and finally, in a desperate rush, he escapes through the steel door just as the lion comes crashing against it! ”

“ When the weather is foul, and the circus lot is hip-deep in mud, when men have struggled to their utmost and can go no longer on their own power, he doesn’t brace them with bootleg whisky. Instead, he keeps a man on the pay roll whose job is to laugh and sing in such times as this—the superintendent knowing full well that one laugh begets another, that singing engenders singing, and that the psychological value of that laughing man is worth barrels of booze. ”