HUMAN KING OF THE JUNGLE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1032, 28 November 1912, Page 4

HUMAN KING OF THE JUNGLE.

THE LATE MR BOSTOCK.

Mr Frank Bostock, a lion tamer of genius and a great showman, long known as the “Animal King,” died at his Kensington home on the afternoon of October Blh.

Mr Bostock, who has been ailing for a week after a severe attack of influenza, was the famous menagerie proprietor whose “jungles” at Coney Island, New York, in Paris, Earl’s Court, and at the Shepherd’s Bush Exhibition have delighted millions of animallovers. His whole career was a romance. He was a sou of that fine old showman, James Bostock, who married a daughter of an equally representative family—the Wombwells, Frank Bostock was intended by his parents lor the Church, and was educated at Kelvedon College, in Essex, with that view, but his inherited tendencies were far too strong for him. “I had gone home for the holidays, I remember,” he said once in telling of his first start. “My father, who was then running a big menagerie of wild beasts, had among his trainers a man whose methods seemed to my youthful mind to be unduly brutal. “I saw him in a cage ill-treating an old lion, and when I complained to my lather he took me by the shoulders and said, ‘Young man, I know a trainer when I see one at work. Go back to school!’’

“But I was not to be put off like that, aud early uext morning I slipped into the cage with the fold lion. My father found me there, and I can still see his deathly white face.

“ ‘Frank,’ he whispered hoarsely, ‘when you get out of that cage I am going to give you the best belting you ever had in your life.’

“I came out, and the old man just threw his arras round my neck aud cried like a child. Two nights later that lion attacked his trainer and tore him to pieces.’’ In the forty-eight years of his crowded life he faced many perils, and had many miraculous escapes from death. One of the narrowest was seven years ago, during a great gala performance of his “jungle” in aid of charity at the Hippodrome in Paris. A wish had been expressed by the French President that Mr Bos*

lock should appear personally at this show, and he decided to enter a cage in which one of his ferocious lions, Wallace was being put through his paces. The moment Wallace caught sight of his master he pinned him against the bars. For some time Mr Bostock defended himself with his whipstock, but the lion bit him severely through the shoulder and lett hand. Mr Bostock at last beat the liou off with a “property” chair, but it was three months before he was well enough to tame any more lions. . On another occasion, in Kansas City, he entered a cage in which a womau trainer was making a lion and lioness perform. The lion, thinking Mr Bostock was about to whip the lioness, picked him up in his mouth as though he had been a child, and dropped him at the feet of the womau, who was still in the cage. His golden rules for the ideal animal trainer were these ;

He must be primarily a lover of animals.

He must possess the patience of Job. Kindness must be the Alpha and Omega of his creed.