THE LOAFER IN THE STREET.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1264, 6 April 1878, Page 3

THE LOAFER IN THE STREET.

[from thb press.] " He pray«sth best who lovotb best All things both great and small." That's what Coleridge says in his caution *y r sportsmen against shooting albatrosses. I da/ejsay true. You can just depend on one fact. JM w? one tells you he don't like animals, .the Jess you ,do s?ith him the better. As Williams says oi .the'man who don't like music "Lefc no such galoot £e I have been much in contact with beasts. J arh still very often. Natural History is a favorite study of mine. The best form of Natural JJistory is the bovine and ovine branch, whejrp 3. man has 80,000 sheep and 1000 head of cattle and studies them. The worst form of studying zoology is hunting bed bugs. A bed bug has never yet been known to die in the odour of sanctity. In his death even the bed bug is really beautiful. It is not every day that a resident of the Antipodes has a chance of interviewing a wild boast show, and I must certainly plead guilty to the weakness of desiring to renew my acquaintance wjtli Jbhe Hyrcan tiger and the armed rhinoceros, to say nothing of the banded armadillo and the ingenious chimpanzee, whose eftigh>s, limned in gorgeous colors, adorned the front of Wombwell's famed menagerie in the days of our youth The advent of .Cooper and Hailey's renowned show afforded me an opportunity, which I embraced, of once more gratifying my curiosity'with ifegard ,to the animated Jcingdom, arid' 1 was' onj|~ of Jthe parfiesc ?j{|ifcwi to the Menpgerje, i ajto nosßßiised

the additional advantage of securing as my zoological cicerone an incipient Van Amburgh, who had been habituated to the manners and customs of the aiimals from his earliest youth under the auspices of Professor Johnson, the Lion King. My young guide bore upon his person innumerable certificates of his exploits in the Bhape of many bites and scratches received at the jaws and claws of his charges. I gathered from his remarks that a wild beast keeper, fond as T am of animals, would not be my forte. On entering the show, the first beast I encountered was a hateful creditor, whose voracity I have proved from past experience to be at least equal to that of a full grown lion, and whom 1 w«uld gl'dly see served up in a luncheon for the king of animals The elephant first claimed my notice. He is a truncated animal. He has never been known to travel without his trunk. He is an inexpensive animal to keep. He only eats six hundred pounds of hay per diem, and as much more as ho can get from voluntary contributions. The adept in elephants has pronounce 1 him to be the most regal of the animal kingdom, whether as regards his size, strength, powers of endurance, and s»g<icity. Messrs Cooper and Biiley have two varieties of the beast, viz., the African and the Asiatic. The former has remarkably large ears and only four toes. The A-iatic hss much smaller ears, hut Nature, who is not a hid handicipper, has squared matters by giving him one toe more on each foot. His toes thus make a toetal of twenty all told. The elephant, like man must love something, and Messrs Bailey and Cooper's elephants have chosen for their bosom friends two spotted dogs, to whom they are devotedly attached. It is not a good thing to ill-use "these dogs. Such a course would induce a combined attack from all the elephants. One of them is called Titania. I may mention that she is not the Titania who is entered for the Autumn Handicap. The elephants' next door neighbors are a group of camels one of them is a Bacrian camel. He has two humps, and consequently more back, hence his name. He did not put on airs, on appear proud of the fact. Possibly the additional tump might be a drawback, as his two humps might bo regarded as a reason too hump more than his brethren. The camel is also called the ship of the desert. lam not acquainted with his rig, but the double humped animal I should pronounce a full-rigged ship. I took a passage by thi* ship once. There was ft man overboard three minutes afterwards. Since then I have not been partial to camel navigation. There is a young cunel who bears a strong likeness to his parents. Here I may mention that wild animals rarely brred in captivity, the most frequent exceptions being lions and leopards, and very rarely hyenas and camels. In addition to the animals trained, the collection includes kangaroos, fallow deer, lions, a tiger, jaguars, a cheetah, four hyenas, emus, a coyote, an elk, a rhinoceros, a bison, a sea lion, and a " wilderness of monkeys." In the order of precedence, the lions come first. They constitute a family in themselves, the full-grown lions with their cubs being six in all. I am not a judge of lions in the flesh. My only acquaintance with the noble animal being in connection with the festive unicorn and a vague reminiscence of a legend of my youth in connection with a gentleman named Androcles, who appears to be the first lion tamer on record, of course excepting Daniel. Now I come to the spotted 'pard. One of the most remarkably of this fraternity is the j iguir. The jaguar is Satanic in his disposition, and claims a species of relationship with the historical leopard who is popularlv supposed to be always changing his spots. When I interviewed the jaguar lie was never iu the same spot two minutes together. The jaguar, by those who know him best, is said to be treacherous, and he passes his time meditating dodges how to euchre his keeper. He don't succeed. The elk is of S -otcH ex traction, and natives of that portion of Great Britain are frequently only known by the patronymic of MacG-illicuady or MacFadden of that elk. The elk is a deer. He is in the habit of Bhedding his horns. This one has done so, and they are hung up on the wall as a proof of the fact. The rhinoceros is also a horned animal. He naturally possesses only one horn, but his boss thought that one horn was one too many, as he acquired an expensive habit of poking it through the roof. It was, therefore, found necessary to shed it for him, which was dona with the agency of a hand saw. He is also hairy, which is not a common occurrence, the average rhinoceros being bald, and his pachydermatous peculiarities are such that tricopherous has no more effort on him than it would have on a graven image. The last of the cornuted animals is the North American bison. He m>y be fairly termed the b"S of the show. If is behaviour is in striking contrast with that, of the other bossps. He was captured on fche boundless prair rie by the renowned Indlii warrior Sitting Bull, The bison, unlike his captor, never sits, and harrows up the souls of those who have him in charge by refusing to learn the simplest rudiments of captivity. A power among the carnivora is the hyena. The hyena i'i his savage state is a ghoul, with an unwholesome appetite for the decaying relics of mortality. Ilia favovifce hunting ground is a cemetery, and his appetite is omriiverouely Catholi ■•■. He is sometimes credited with laughing, but I did not hear him perhaps he saw nothing to laugh at. I thought of testing his cachinatory powers by giving him a few of the last numbers of the '.'Loafer," but a friend suggested that they were more calculated to make him wpep. The last objects of my attention were the monkeys, and they cannot be better described than in the words of Josh Biljings, who has made a study of the Simian rape. He eqys " The monkey is a human baing, a little undersized, kivered with hair, hitched to a tail, and filled with the devil. Pure devilry is the monkey's right bower ; he is only valuable (az personal property) tew look at, and wonder what he iz g.QJng tew do next. He resembles the rat tarrier in eountpnance, and scratches his hed as natural az a distrikt skooj boy, and un doubtedly for the same reason. They will eat. everything that a man will except hojony sasoage; here they show more inptjncfc than, reason." I don't tbi >k that I can add anything to the opinions Suoted that would bo of any additional yalue. a the game cage with the monkeys are two other animals, the Woodohuck and the Prnrie dog. The former is not an expensive animal, He conceals what emotions he has in a corner, and curses the monkey race. The Prairie dog is a jocund little varlet. In his country he burrows out a home in the prairie, where in company whh au owl and a snake he dwells peacefully by his own Jlreside. Yfhj he selects these associates no naturalist has ever been able to ascertain, and the Prairie dog has so far been silent on the subject. The sea lion lives a life of luxury in a cold bath. It is not a fact, as supposed by pome, that she sings. The Learned Pig and the anai.-onda \n the side show are'both' studies.' The latter I prefer studying jn the distance. I never did allow familiarities from ijnajfes. I have not made any allusion to the feathered songsteru, the emus, or to the Kangaroos. They are familiar to your readers. I shall be more descriptive next week, but some of these beasts want thinking over. I must ponder over them, though the more I ponder, as a rule, the more ponderous I become. I dare say yoti have observed this.