A UNIQUE TRADE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 171, 21 July 1928, Page 6 (Supplement)

A UNIQUE TRADE.

WORLD'S ONLY LION FARMER. AFTER BLUE RIBBON FLLINES M'AKTED Willi SIX i\ N'» u.r.r.sioNs .vnoi j mm:):: INTKLLIMLNCE. Uliiiir- T. < lay, the old li'.'U herder i.ii LI Monte, Califortiiu, vi.-ilcd New \ ork tor a few hours before sailing with Mrs. ( -a y for Liverpool on tlie White Mar liner Baltic. Mr. (lav, who so lar as he know-; 'lias the only lion faint in the world, wants to pick up a. few blue ribbon in Lngland and (ifi/nany to freshen lip his stock of Ino yearlings. Mrs. Cay will meet Renin-: h. her son by a previous manure, whom she hap not seen since he was eighteen months oh), and take the young fellow back to America, where he will be apprenticed as a lion taiuer. Mr. (.jay began life as a watchmaker in England. But hair-springs and ratchets palled on the romantic young man, who longed for a more exciting career. !So he joined a circus and became a lion tamer, later taking his Ph.D under Professor Frank (J. Bostoek himself. Like most persons who rise to the top of their professions, Air. Gay eventually drifted into motion pictures, where, if anybody wanted a fellow to stick his head inside a lion's mouth, he was the first to answer the call. However. he soon found that there were far too few lions to be had for this special work. Calls Lions Unintelligent. So ho purchased an eight-acre tract outside Los Angeles and turned six lions loose on it to scamper and frisk about as much as they pleased. That was in 1921 and since then 200 baby lions have been born to the original settlers.' Of that, number 130 withstood the rigours of teething, croup and measles and are now being trained to walk, graciously wag their tails and register the various emotions necessary for a successful career in the cinema and circus worlds. "I have no illusions about the intelligence of lions,"' said Mr. Gay. "There never was a talking lion or one that would remember thirty years later the time he was given the exploding cigar. Thejr memories dim so quickly that you would think their brains were sewn on with a needle and thread. "The baby lions I have left behind at El Monte will have forgotten me when I return. They are a good deal like human beings, and mostly think about eating. 1 slaughter and serve 1800 pounds of beef a day for the grown-ups, and feed the kiddies rich cream and raw eggs. "The prize lion of my ranch is Numa, who co-starred in 'The Circus' with Charlie Chaplin. Xurna is as good as he is beautiful, and in a decent season earns as much as £2<Ksi». "The lion market has not reached a bullish state yet. but 1 am not going to stop breeding them until it does. It would be perfectly easy for me to dispose of '200 lions a year in America if I had them."