CAT MAKES £100 A WEEK.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LX, Issue 17014, 18 June 1917, Page 6

CAT MAKES £100 A WEEK.

EDUCATED HORSE EARNS £60

A NIGHT

While trained animals are not always pets, a certain amount of petting is necessary to bring out any animal's skill. As a*rule, animals are ironed for money-making purposes, and few people realise the large sums earned each year by genuine novelties in the performing-ammal line. For instance, the original boding kangaroo, until it met with an untimely, death, made its master over £3,000 richer in return for its two years' exhiui dons of J pugilistic skill. ' ' ;,

It is, of course, the original inventor of an animal novelty " turn" who reaps the golden harvest.' When, for example, Captain Woodward proved that ifc was possible to train a troupe of seals and sea-lions to dance, sing,' smoke, play musical instruments and perform all sorts of strange and funny tricks, he struck a gold-mine. Managers vied with ono another for "dates," and bid against each other as regards salaries. But when similar troupes were trained and sought engagements the novelty woro off, an dthe inevitable result ensued. .

Even more money awaited the genius who some years ago conceived the idea of training a troupe of performing fleas. He was a frenchman named Despard, who for a long time prior to his lucky venture had eked out a precarious living as a teacher of languages n Soho. After five or six years of "fleaexhibition, however, he retired with a, fortune. Some ingenious statistician reckoned that each of Despard's fleas earned for its master more than, a million times its weight in gold; '

: It is.the''same with, nearly all animal' "stars." Leoni Clarke, Avho fir.>i : taught a cab to ascend in a balloon and come down by means of a parachute, used to reckon on making nearly £100 a week out of the show. Elephants haw always earned good salaries. George Lochart, the owner and trainer of the best elephant troupe on the road at the present time, once stated that his elephants earned him an average of £60 a week apiece. But, of course, it cost a considerable amount to keep them.

The first • educated horse, exhibited by a man named Banks, brought his owner no less than £60 a night. .