A Dealer in Animals.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXV, Issue 2, 15 July 1905, Page 24

A Dealer in Animals.

Mr Hagenbeck, the famous dealer in wild animals, whose head-quarters are at Berlin, has had remarkable experiences with his strange stock-in-trade.

He has had one or two most marvellous escapes from violent death. At on* time he had a female elephant who at the word of command used to swing him up on to her baek with her trunk. But one day’ when doing this "Betsy,” as she was called, suddenly and without any warning or provocation dashed Mr Hagenbeck down on to the barrier in which she was inclosed. Just imagine it! The man held high in the air, and then hurled with all an elephant’s tremendous power down on to a stout oaken beam. But he was comparatively unhurt, though the barrier was smashed. .On another occasion he was in a van with six young elephants, when they took fright and broke loose. It was night-time. His light was overturned and went out, and, says Mr Hagenbeck simply: "I have no idea how I ever got out alive.” Then another time he was in a van with an elephant, and was examining a lock when the brute charged him from behind, its tusks passing providentially one on each side of big body, and doing no more serious damage than breaking the skin. Once an alligator sent him with a flick of its tail into a tank in which were several alligators. He was qut of that tank in remarkably short time. And the man who has had these hair-raising experiences is a quiet, elderly gentleman, who, save for the compelling power of his grey eyes, does not in any way suggest that it is his business daily to handle and tame wild animals. For the rest, Mr Hagenbeck is fairly tall, spare, and ’wiry, with a pleasant, amiable fare, clean-shaven save for a fringe of greyiak beard. He speaks English very well.