Lion Tamers "Nerves."

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13602, 23 May 1908, Page 3 (Supplement)

Lion Tamers "Nerves."

PERFORMING BABOONS. In the litigation over five trained baf boons the Official Referee gave lus award in London on April 9th in favour of Mr Bosiock. 'Die defendant, Captain Frank Taylor, trainer of was sent out in 1903 in charge of Mr E. H. Bostock's touring menagerie in South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. { Before the tour was ended Mr Taylor gave up management, and Mr Rostock had to send his son out to take charge of the business. When Mr Taylor | reached England in April 1906 he brought with him five trained baboons. Mr Bostock contended that these were five of the forty baboons bought) for the menagerie, but Mr Taylor, who is now showing them at the London Coliseum, gave evidence that these bought for the show had all died and been buried by their keeper, or had got away, or been sold, and that these were his own, two as presents and three paid for. Closs-examined by Mr Walter Payne, Mr Taylor said " the merest farmer's boy could perform with a troupe of lions." The Official Referee: Which are the easier to train—lions or monkeys? Witness: Lions. I would undertake to put a troupe of lions before an audience, with every trick compld<4, 'in less than two months;, but it would take twelve months to do that with baboons. Later on in his examination the wiuness said said when Mr Bostock found that the show did not pay he wrote him letters that so unnerved him that he had to get his wife to read them first. Mr Payne expressed surprise : that a " lion tamer" should be a man of nerves at all. Witness: There are two kinds of nerve. I won't make, a good policeman, but putme in the lion's cage and you can't upset me. (Laughter.) If a man keeps on telling you or writing you that he has lost £IO,OOO, and if you don't send him along some money he will be in Skinnerstreet, what•• are 1 you to ,do? If the money is not theie you cannot make it. The witness denied that these baboons were worth £4O a week to the Bostock Show.: -.- When they arrived in London their education was still unfinished, and no one would have given him 40s a week for a "turn." item of £34, which he claimed from the plaintiff, he explained in this way.For many years he was" a lion-tamer, a nd could never insure his life lor the benefit of his wife '■ and family, because he was daily at the mercy of "the animals. At Johannesburg he nearly came to grief in the lions' den, and his wife 'and friends implored him to -give the business up. At Durban he met, a man who asked to be allowed in insure him,, and he paid £<s4 for an insurance of £I,OOO. The doctor passed him, but he subsequently received . a letter "fr6m the insurance officer saj'ing that the declined the risk,-and returned the £34. _.. is ' £34 he paid in to Mr Bostock's account at the Standard Bank of South Africa. That.was his own money, and he claimed the' ratuin of it. ._Mr. Yerejv the. official referee, said he thought the plaintiff was entitled to.the return of the baboon named " Porch," and he would make an order to that effect. Two - other baboons he valued at £BO, and 'the defendant must pay that sum or return them. .. He. awarded the plaintiff £369 14s 2d as due to him on the accounts of the tour, together with the costs''of the reference.