GIRL LION TAMER

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 133, 29 February 1936, Page 20

GIRL LION TAMER

Animals not to be Trusted

Even in the days when I was fifteen and earning my living in the circus at bareback riding and in cowboy troupes I had a longing to work with wild animals, writes the noted wild-animal tamer, Miss Patricia Bourne. Two years ago I had a chance to leave horses for lions and I took it. I began my circus career with a company in France, where I learned trick Tjding with teams of horses and at one time played in a cowboy troupe, doing such “stunts” as flicking cigarettes with, a stockwhip while riding barebacked at full gallop. But exciting as the life was, it was nothing to the thrill I had when I first went into a lions’ cage and realised that my life depended on my courage and nerves. I say courage. Perhaps that is not quite the right word. Safety in the ring among the lions depends on concentration and keeping the animals in their place by showing you are master.

1 shall not easily forget my first terrifying experience. It was at a little town called Miremont, near Bordeaux, in the South of France. The chief trainer wanted a girl assistant, and knowing that I had always Jonged to work with lions, asked me to help him. I went into the cage, and the first thing he did was to size me hy the shoulders and rush me toward the mouth of a lion sitting on a pedestal. The beast growled horribly and opened his mouth, showing, rows of huge teeth. I thought my last hour had come. But the trainer would not let me get away, telling me I must never turn my back or the. animal, after I had approached him like that or else he would pounce. The savage instinct of the beast would tell him that I was afraid, and that would be fatal. It was a lesson I never forgot, but it was a very abrupt way of Jf>ariiing it. That lion, Guieto, is with lue now, appearing at-Olympia, London. JVe are sometimes accused of illtreating animals to make them obey, but if you ill-treat a lion he will never forget it. He will-wait'years for a chance to.get at anyone who has been unkind to him, often with fatal results. A lion or lioness has a memory n s long as tin elephant’s. For instance, my lioness, .Sultan, was onto .whipped by a trainer in Spain. Sultan waited her opportunity and one day took it. The man was badly mauled and was in hospital for a long time.

It is more than one’s life is worth to hurt a lion. They are curious animals. Yon may think they are your friends and that you can trust them implicitly. It may be so for a thousand times, but on their next appearance they may try! to maul you. I am devoted to my Monty. I can do anything with him: ride on his back, pick up his paws, treat him like a great eat. But I can never be really certain, for wild animals can neter be properly domesticated. The history of the circus has taught us that.

The most trilling things are sufficient, to terrify and subdue a lion or lioness. For instance, .Sultan has the reputation of a female rogue, but if I go straight up to her, whip out a halffilled box of matches and shake them in her face, slie will slink away as if she had been soundly beaten. It is the same in the ring. When I am training for a performance—and we rehearse our act every day if possible —I use nothing 'more elaborate than an empty paint pot, I cannot remember where I found the old pot. It is an ordinary tin with a loose wire handle. When I pick it up It makes a rattling noise. But that noise has a strange effect on my team of five wild beasts. They will often pay no attentio.n to the crack of the whip or my voice. But if I rattle the pot they at once become obedient. Lions react to clothes. Nicolai, my Greek groom, nearly always wears very baggy plus-fours when he is helping me in the ring. The lions know those trousers just as well as they know Nicolai. But. if I wore plus-fours like that I do uot know what would happen. Certainly I would never dare go into the ring wearing a skirt. They would go for it immediately. There is something in the swish of the skirt that angers the lion. I always have to wear the same kind of costume, breeches and top boots, with a tight-fitting jumper or shirt blouse which gives me absolute freedom of .movement. That is essential, for you have to be just as nippy about the ring as the lions themselves. The one thing a lion-tamer must never do is to slip. The moment, yon 'are on the ground the lions know you are helpless. They will leap on you simultaneously. although you have known fhenrfor years. - ■ The instinct of the jungle gels the upper hand. Ami, of course, there would not be much left of a girl after two lions ■and three lionesses had pounced on her even if only for a second or two. It is always well to kt'ep on the move in the ring. As long as your feet are on the ground ami you are not obviously running away, then Hie lions will not go for you. If they are sitting on their stools, you van sit down, 100, and watch them or read a newspaper. (5f course, you get very fond of them, although you know they can be so treacherous. I am devoted to my five friends of the ring—Belmonte (my favourite) and Guieto (the lions), and Sultan, Granada and Sevila (the lionessesl. not forgetting the three cubs, of which Tiajah, now about seven months old and very obstinate, promises to be as noble a beast as his parents. Cubs can often ly much more surly than the grown-itps. How many limes have they scratched me! But that is part bf the day’s work if yon make up your mind to be a liontamer.