We know few things more cruel than the way iu
which lion- tamers,—like those at Sanger's menagerie at Birmingham,— deal with their victims, in order to give the public the trivial amusement of seeing them act like tame animals, when they aro really kept down only by terror. On Saturday, the Bir- mingham lion-tamer, Alicamousa, a coloured man, who had previously severely punished. the large lieu, "Wallace," for his attack on the cage-cleaner, was himself attacked by the resentful animal, and narrowly escaped with his life, though not without terrible injuries, being saved only by the thrusting of red-hot irons through the bars of the cage. It seems probable that by this last display of temper the lion, if he survives his wounds, which are as desperate as his assailant's, will secure for himself the comparatively peaceful captivity of the Zoological Gardens, and be tormented no more by displays of his preternatural submissiveness to a tyrant whom he must hate. So much the better for " Wallace." But the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals should prosecute all those lion-tamers—who gain their ascendancy solely by cruelty and keep it by constant re- course to the same means.
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