Wild Beasts at Olympia
By F. YEATS-BROWN. NINE lions and a tiger arc shown at Olympia, also twelve sea-lions. The rest of the circus is as good as I have ever seen. More's the pity that it should be -marred by the stupid display of lions.
' Of all the good turns the Schumann Liberty Horses i; the best. • They are wonderfully trained animals ; and the Seinunanns themselves, being accomplished high school riders, give a display of equestrianism which would be hard to beat. Few members of the audience, I dare say, realized how good it was : they have a bay, a black and a chestnut thoroughbred whose piaffers and passages would be the delight of Geoffrey Gambado himself to say nothing of Lord Lonsdale, whose hands in his younger days were reputed to be equal to those of the greatest Continental masters of haute &ale. It is a pleasure to the horse-lover, also, to see how carefully all the little details of " turn-out " have been studied by the Schumanns, both as regards mount and man. Their performance is a lesson in horsemanship and horse- mastership, as well as excellent entertainment.
Again, Alfred Loyal's dogs gave a delightful show, and one in which it seems to me no cruelty is involved. The brown poodle who turns a back somersault was Wagging his tail for minutes before he did his piece : evidently he looks forward to the applause which greets his feat ; as also does a glorious Alsatian, versed in juggling.
tven the performance of the sea-lions (much as I dislike the capture of wild creatures for display) seemed to me unobjectionable from a humanitarian point of view, kr they enjoyed themselves. Yet where are we to draw the line ? I have no doubt where to draw it myself : it is at the point which divides wild from doniesticated animals. I dare say the tiger who rides round the arena on a heavily padded white horse prefers that -exercise to the' two Steps lie can take in the tiny travelling cage in which he spends the greater part of his captivity. But is that a reason why we should encourage Mr. Mills to show us a beautiful wild beast making a fool of itself ? Mr. Bernard Shaw has truly said that " a Performing animal trained by kindness-would be just as intolerable and unnatural a spectacle as one trained in the usual way."
.I see that Lord Lonsdale said he " had had hundreds of letters, including fifty-two from ladies who objected " to this turn ; but that he is satisfied that " horse and tiger are perfectly good friends." That may be, but the opinion of the spectators on the night I was present was not difficult to discern. Neither the tiger nor the lions aroused any enthusiasm whatsoever compared to the other turns.
Several hundreds of people rose to go when Herr Miximillian brought on his poor lions. Some of these people may have been intending to catch early trains, bUt I have no doubt whatever that a large number left for other reasons, and I rejoice that it should be so, for it is a.-clear indication that the tide of public opinion has set against displays of dangerous‘ animals. One of .the reasons why so many of the audience left was probably boredom, for the lions do nothing but slouch on to tubs or group themselves sulkily in various parts of the arena : it is an idiotic performance.
Who is Herr Maximillian, by the way ? I saw him afterwards behind the scenes, with an ivory-handled pistol in his breast pocket, coaxing his wretched charges into_ the boxes in which they must live when not in the arena ; but amongst the full and interesting biographies-of all the other performers given in the circus programme his name is conspicuous by its absence.
In his travelling menagerie Herr Maximillian keeps also two brown bears and three (or four —they were lying in a -heap so that I could not count them) polar bears, looking the picture of dejection. Is one of these bears the animal that killed Herr - Cossmeyer ? And if the bears are not to be shown, what is the point of keeping them in their travelling cages ?
I do not wish to seem unfair to Herr Maximillian, who, I am sure, is kind to his charges (indeed, I saw him nursing his baby tigers with great affection), but I do wish that he had not been engaged for Olympia. The spectators would quite evidently prefer some clever turn like the stilt walkers or the high bicyclists, or the enchanting Bronetts who slip up over their pails and raise howls of laughter from young and old. Mr. Mills' programme is an amusing and varied one : let him omit wild beasts from his future circuses. He may easily convince himself, by mingling among his audiences, that the lion and tiger turns sadden and disgust many men, as well as women and children. Many of us have known what it is to be imprisoned in the last war : we should do all we can to help these prisoners for life who are supposed to enliven us by the spectacle of their humiliation.
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