Side Show Studies | Page 5

human flesh, had been dealt with
by the Proprietor of the menagerie in a manner which would spoil his
appetite for many a day to come and make him remember that trainers
cannot be mangled with impunity.
Most of the lights were extinguished at Dreamland, but two men sat at
the table in front of the Arena with the Proprietor, discussing the
accident and listening to stories of former encounters which he related.

His own body bears the scars of many a battle with his savage charges,
but he has discontinued giving personal exhibitions with them in the
large cage, because his wife has developed a prejudice against having
him brought to her in fragments, and he has found that the training of
trainers is a far more difficult task than the education of wild animals.
"Yes, any man who follows this business carries his life in his hands,"
he said in answer to a question from the Stranger within the gates. "You
helped to care for poor Bonavita to-night, after Baltimore finished with
him, so you know what a lion's jaws can do. I've seen 'em chewed up as
bad as that and get over it, but they never get quite the same again.
Leave the business? No; it is like the sea: a man who takes to it keeps it
up until the time comes when he doesn't recover, but after a bad
accident he usually takes another breed of animals.
"The worst sight I ever saw was about five years ago, when one of our
performing bears turned on its trainer and seized his arm. He worried it
as a terrier would a bone for a good twenty minutes before we could
drive him off, and the bear died from the punishment we gave him. The
man's arm isn't much use to him now, but he is crazy for me to give
him another group of animals to train, which I can't do because a man
needs two good pairs of limbs when he gets into the exhibition cage."
He told of many accidents which had happened to himself and his
employees, most of them through their own carelessness, born of
constant association with their charges who never miss the opportunity
which the shortest instant of forgetfulness gives them.
[Illustration: "A constant procession of small animals moving down his
throat."]
"I said that bear attack was the worst sight I ever saw, and it was; but
something happened here last year which impressed me more because
it was so mysterious. A friend of mine in Florida shipped me a box of
rattlers, which he wrote had been 'attended to,' and I supposed that their
poison fangs had been extracted. They were delivered just before the
performance started and I ripped a board off the box and stuck my hand
in, grabbing them one by one and throwing them into the den as if they
were garter snakes.

"The man who took care of the snakes was out on the ballyhoo,
walking around with the gander following him to advertise the show;
and when he came in he looked them over and found that each one had
as pretty a pair of fangs as you would wish to see. He told me about it
and I confess that it gave me a gone feeling in the pit of my stomach,
for I remembered how I had felt around for them in the box with my
bare hands.
"I am pretty busy while a performance is going on, so I told him to let
them alone until I had a chance to examine them. Ninety per cent. of
the accidents which occur in a menagerie comes from the disregard of
ordinary precautions or the disobedience of orders, and I had a
presentiment that something was going to happen and I was keeping an
extra vigilant eye on the performers in the big exhibition cage. Well, it
happened, all right; but not in the way that I expected.
"The snake man instead of getting back on the ballyhoo where he
belonged, stood around the snake cage, watching the new rattlers, and
along came a couple of gazabos who commenced talking about them.
One of them was the wise guy, who always knows about how the
animals are doped so they won't bite and all that other information
which isn't so. He commenced explaining how the snakes were
harmless, because their teeth had been pulled, and giving a lot of
misinformation about them. The snake man listened until he couldn't
stand it any longer and then he stuck his hand into the cage and grabbed
one of the rattlers by the neck.
"'Fangs pulled, eh?' says he, and he made the rattler open his mouth and
show a perfect pair of stingers. The