PERFORMING WILD BEASTS.

Press, Volume LI, Issue 8708, 2 February 1894, Page 3

PERFORMING WILD BEASTS.

I TO THE EDITOR OF THE _*____. I SiE, —Since Mr Cox's accident there has been much discussion of the performing wild beast questiou, hut as uo one appears :to look at it from the animal's point of view, I constitute myself their champion. It seems to mc the tamer is not the one to be pitied, and that the " degrading spectacle" is the tortured beast. If a man chooses to place his life in danger daily, it is his own look out; should he lose it, the world will be only one id atom the less. . But the beast has no choice. Ido not say that he is not better off in his cage, well fed and warm, than half starved in his native freedom. His sleek condition proves that he is; but the whip 1 I have seen one, not belonging to Fillis' Circus, a heavy thong of twisted steel wire, with leadloaded handle, which, with a man's strength behind it, would raise a bruised and painful welt beneath such skin as a tiger's. Take on an average four performances a week, you've seen the tamer at work with the whip, aud judge of the tiger's feelings in its leisure hours. It is astonishing that the 5.P.0. A., who raise a perfect dust storm over a horse which has galled its shoulders in honest working for its tucker, can calmly watch the persecution of a helpless beast and take no action against the cruelty. —Yours, &_. * Mercy.