FROM JUNGLE TO CIRCUS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 164, 13 July 1935, Page 7 (Supplement)

FROM JUNGLE TO CIRCUS.

A Glance Behind the Scenes.

TEACHING LIONS TO PERFORM —A TRAINER'S NERVE-RACKING JOB.

Wo were going to see a lion tamer at work, breaking in new performers. In talking to wild beast showmen you get enough thrill stuff but not enough real, inside information. \ou have to read between tho lions, as Ed Wynn says, jfow we were to have the chance to see some real action. We would sit outside •the arena and watch the trainer working on full-grown lions that had never faced a man before—except with bars between them. This is a show the public does not see. Only a few lions are trained from cubs. Most of the performers in the big shows are trained when they are fully mature, just as they came off the ship or from the lion farm. A few weeks to get over travel nervousness and become acclimated, and the jungleborn lion, captured full grown, can be put in the ring. The lions waiting in the cages for training are not tamed in any sense. They will snarl like demons, hurl themselves at the bars and strike through them at the slightest provocation. The cage hands never go in reach of the bars, and have the utmost fear of the beasts. All the cages open at the back into a narrow tunnel of heavy wooden slats just big enough for a full-sized beast to walk through. From this tunnel a movable runway can be set up, leading to the arena, a steel-barred circle 40ft in diameter and about ISft high, closed at the top. Around it, inside the bars, small platforms are clamppd. It is nearly eleven o'clock, after the finish of the evening show. We go out and take two seats in the front row of the dark amphitheatre. The only lights are over the arena. It is all silent and mysterious, with the heavy, pungent smell very noticeable in the empty space. Instructions are to sit still and not to strike lights, talk or ask questions. One looks at the bars and hopes that all the openings are properly closed. Silently half a dozen men in working trousers and sweaters come out and take their places around tho outside of the bars with heavy long poles in their hands. At each of the double-door exits a man takes his post. In the stillness voices from the back are heard. "Open that cage." "Get Dinah into the runway." "Poke her out." There is a heavy step and the trainer comes into the ring of light. He looks big in his riding breeches and tan boots; a revolver holster is on each thigh. Several long-lashed whips are under his arm. The overhead light makes black shadows on his face and in the creases of his white clothes. —

General Plays Up. He gives a few orders in a low voice and goes in through one of the side doors. The man looks very solitary, all by himself inside the bars. He walks about, dropping whips here and there. Similarly he places about the arena some of the heavy poles, Bft long and 2in thick. At one 6ide is a common bentwood, cane seat chair. He draws a revolver, cocks it; holds it and 'the chair, gripped by the back, in his left fist. In the other is one of bis whips. He takes bis stand in the centre of the ring, facing the gate. "What have you got out there?" "General is first." "Let him in." The gate slides up, and into the open, in a quick, soundless leap, comes a lion. His head looks big as a barrel. Hi 3 mane sweeps the tanbark. His yellow, glaring, opalescent eyes fix on the man. With a scuffle the lion stops short. For a moment he looks at the man and then turns and starts a loping, slinking gallop around the bars under the iron braces of the perches. "Here you! You General! Cut that out! Come back here!" Cracking of the whip lash in front of his muzzle makes the lion whirl around. The pole blocks him in the other direction. Snarling, he rushes at the trainer. The lion's claws cut the air as he strikes at the man with a paw like a dinner plate ringed with steel hooks. The roan is ready with the chair and thrusts it in the beast's face. General stops stupidly. He grinds one of the chair legs in his jaws and then backs away. "Get up there. Go on, you big ox. You know what to do. Get up there." Every order ends in a smack of the whip before the lion's muzzle. He turns bis head to avoid it. A low perch is behind him. He unwillingly puts his fore paws on it. A crack of the whip on his rump and the lion hoists his heavy bulk to the seat. There he sits, stubbornly growling and striking out with his paws, until the incessant whip lashing and the orders wear him down. He jumps around the circle from perch to perch until he reaches the top one in the centre. "Stay there, you lunkhead. Don't let me have any more monkey business from you." The trainer walks back to the middle. "What's next ?"

Reducing A Lioness. "Reeba. Look out for her." "Let her in." There is a yellow flash as the gate flicks. A great "tawny shape streaks into the arena. The lioness pays no attention to the man, but wheels like a horse and dashes aorund the circle, madly scrambling and dashing her head against the iron legs of the perches, knocking some of them down. It is like a frantic cat trying to get out of a strange room. Around her neck is a trace chain—two feet of loose end whipping as she leaps. The chains are put on untrained animals in their cages by roping them and passing the chains around with wire loops. "Steady there! Steady down, you fool," yells the trainer, following the beast, lashing at her with his whip and trying to get ahead to block her with his pole. She evades him and rears to claw at the bars. "Quiet down! acting crazy. Show some sense. N'ohody's goinp to hurt you. Good girl. Good girl." He has her cornered under a perch and tries to prod her to jump onto.it. Instead, she makes a rush at him. The g r cat flat, snakelike, clay-coloured head darts at him, ears flattened to the neck, jaws open, hissing like a demon. He receives her with the chair in her face »nd retreats cautiously.

you try that! If you do, nobody s going to get hurt but you." Tlie instant she hesitates he jabs her with the pole. Instead of pressing her rush the lioness leaps back and the four hundred-pound mass of muscle and fury begins the race around the bars. Every time the man heads her off she attacks him. The attacks come closer together; she is beginning to watch him and time them. Like a Lassoed Steer. Be ready with the hook," he orders. One of the men outside picks up an iron gaff with a ring at the hand end. The trainer manoeuvres for a chance to check the lioness at that spot. The man lunges through with the hook and catches tho chain. She tears up the tanbark, trying to get away, but two men grip the hook and drag her against the bars. The beast, lier head as high as the men's shoulders as she squats, looks big as a young bull. She can't use lier force effectively and the men hold her helpless, the bars buried in the fur of her side. "Get the rope on it." An end of"a long, tliree-quarter-inch line is snapped on the chain and at the trainer's direc-

tion, while two men hold her fast, the free end of the rope is passed along inside the bars, hand to hand, until it is over a perch. "All right. Give her slack." As soon as the men with the hook let go, the beast leaps away. The men at the rope are braced. Two long leaps and the lioness is jerked to a stop in mid-air. She falls with a solid thump on her side like a lassoed steer. "Haul her up to that perch." The rope is over a cross rail eight feet from the ground. The men haul the lioness to the perch in spite of her silent, desperate resistance. At the perch, to ease the choking of the chain around her neck, she rears up and puts her paws on the small platform. The drag continues. She wlieezily scrambles up and crouches. Immediately the rope is slackened. "There now. Good girl. Good girl." The trainer comes close and experimentally strokes her with the end of his pole. She snarls and strikes at it but presently submits. Her tongue is hanging out. Her head droops. Her barrel-like ribs expand rapidly as she gasps. d*he man comes nearer. "Good girl. Now you're all right. Good girl. Nobody's going to hurt you." He puts his hand on her side, the other hand ready with his revolver. (It is loaded with blanks, for to shoot a lion with revolver bullets in -the arena would be suicide.) The men at the rope set their feet and grip hard, ready to bear down. But the lioness doesn't turn her head. "Good girl." He slaps her side with rough caresses. "There you are. Just sit there and you'll be all right. One of you take a turn of the rope around the bar and stay with her." The trainer walks out into the centre again, wiping the sweat from his face. "What's next?" Tawny Menace. "I've got Sambo in the runway. Are you ready for him?" "Hold him there a minute." Another coil of three-quarter-inch hemp line is in the arena. The trainer straightens it out, looks around, chooses a perch and passes the end of the line above it. The end with the snap hook ho passes through below. Then he takes his ccntre position again, chair and gun in his left hand, whip in the other. "Send him in." The gate slides up. Into the arena glides the barrel head, mattress mane and long body of a lion, crouching, chin close to°the ground. His round, greenishyellow eyes are like big jewels. His tail thrashes menacingly, but after a lone stare he swings to the left and goes at a ponderous gallop around the circle, his chain swinging and battering against the bars and perch legs. ""Stop that! Stay where you Stop that running, »you crazy devil. The trainer is after him, but the lion pavs no attention to the cracking whip. When the pole gets in front of him he brushes it aside. The man can t turn him The beast goes his own way. lhe first time he makes the circle he swings outside a perch that has been knocked loose and is dangling. The next time the trainer is close at this point, the pole is jammed between the bars. For a second the lion hesitates; then he turns and runs the other way. "Stop that running, you fool! Behave vourself. You'll get hurt in a minute*," the trainer yells, running inside the circle and cracking his whip at the brute's muzzle.

The lion begins to slow up. "Watch him," calls the assistant outside. Beaten Like a Dog. "I'm watching him." At that instant the lion wheels and leaps at his tormentor, jaws open in a rasping- growl. The trainer is as quick as the animal. Ho sidesteps the. lunge and meets the next charge with the chair. "You can't do a thing! You can't do a thing, you fool! Don't think you're going to hurt me. Only one that gets hurt will be you." Amazingly the beast spends his fury on the chair, cuffing its legs with his giant paws and splintering one with his teeth. Then he jumps away and again begins to circle the bars. The trainer is after him, but the lion is too big and powerful; the whip is no more than a buzzing fly to him, and he knocks the pole away as if it were a switch. "Damn you, you can't play with me!" shouts the trainer. "I'll show you who's boss here. Quick with that hook when I get him to you." The lion is close to the hanging rope. The man rushes with the pole. In the animal's flash of hesitation the men have gaffed the chain, and three of them hang on to the hook. The snap clicks at the end of the rope. "I'll teach you something, you big, crazy fool!" The trainer swings the long agh pole and brings it down on the lion's head. Crack! Crack! The roof echoes with the repeated blows. "You think you'll hurt somebody. I'll show you who'll get hurt, you ugly devil!" He lashes the lion with powerful, full-arm swings with his whip, the thong thudding against the beast's ribs and curling around his jaws. Here is a spectacle —the king of beasts being beaten like a dog. And ho takes it. The pole is like a straw on his massive skull, and he probably hardly feels the whip, but it certainly is bad psychology for him. The men haul him up on the perch with hardly a struggle.

Cats in a Frenzy. The night's work is finished with two young lionesses. The first of them is more than anything like a cat in a frenzy, trying to escape. She races around the arena, stopping every few leaps to rear against the bars, and at last, in a wild scramble, goes right up to the top. But she is no climber. For a moment she clings, and then drops like a sack to the floor. She liee there so thoroughly done up that it takes the trainer some minutes to get lier over to the bars, where she is partly dragged and partly coaxcd up to a seat. The last lioness is chivvied around the ring a few times, and when her chain is caught and she is snaked up on her perch she lies down across it and cannot be badgered or induced into lifting her head. The first pupil has been unhooked during this lesson and takes the liberty of jumping down. The trainer drives her back to her seat. "Don't you dare to get down from there until I tell you to!" ho shouts. Sho turns her head from him, looking hopelessly through the. bars. "Don't be looking at those men outside." He prods her with the pole. "They're not going to hurt you. I'm the one that will hurt you. Look at me. Pay attention to me." After he has them all quiet on their perches the trainer has the ropes unhooked from all that still are fastened. They all sit quiet, panting and watching him ds he walks around at ease in the centre of the arena. The trainer is sore about his chair. "Look at that chair," he says, holding it up for the men outside to see. "Look at it. I've been telling you all for a week that I want a new chair. I guess this show's rich enough to buy me a chair. If it isn't, I'll pay for it. If I get hurt in here because I haven't a good chair, you fellows better look out for me." The owner of the show has come in during the interlude. "I don't like the way General looks," says the owner. "He's too thin. Why doesn't he fatten up 1" "I Do Hate Hot Nights." "I've been looking at General myself," says the trainer, walking over to the high perch. "He's four years old, and he ought to be as big as a horse." "Look at his backbone. You can see his backbone plain." "I know you can. He ought to have a back like a steer." "General is full of worms. He's got worms bad," volunteers one of the keepers. "What! You telling me that you let a iion worth 1000 dollars get wormy and run down?" The trainer boils over. "What's the reason I just hear about that now? You go to a drug store the first thing in the morning and get a shot of that worm dope for him." General has been looking down genially during the conversation. A discussion about him and his tenants ensues, the trainer standing about casually and paying no attention to the animals on their perches. "Well, I guess we'll call it a day." He cracks his whip. "Open up." As soon as the gate rises the lions leap from their perches, slink across to the runway and disappear. General comes down last and walks out urbanely. The trainer gathers up his whips. "I certainly am thankful for one thing," he says. "Believe me, I'm thankful the weather's cool. Ido hate to work on hot nights."—A. De Ford Pitney in the "Chicago Tribune."