The Express.
London, England, 1858-06-18 00:00:00

MR. BABNY AND TILE ZEBRA.

After a successful tour in the north, Mr. Rarer
has moan returned is London, and yesterday received en
exceedingly numerous circle of is pupils and admirer@ to the
Hiding-house, Kinnerton-street. If the popularity of the
great horse-tamer go on at the present rate he will soot
have to enlarge his arena, as it was with great difficulty
that eves standiag room was found during yesterday's lecture.
The ladies mustered exceedingly strong, not oaly filling the
quarter epistolic allotted to them, but overflowing into the
other portions of the theatre, and, all through the low
lesson, paying the most marked attention to the Seim.
Whether it was the admiration which the fair sex are knows
to teal for that noble animal the bone, or some vague nodes
that the system might be applied to domestic pnepaeeq that
brought the ladles In such crowds to vitae's ktr. R
mode of subjugation we =mot tell, but certain R: 'gat
they formed • clear moiety of the &adieus and did not boo
of the
• IWO OM of tisteeestlei and charieteriatie reined.
tobsevr. That the system is rapidl
ground dillt the pub& was evidenced by they full=
numbers of guidon= won premed hem the practises and
eves from Inroad, who had war Um journey, to Loners
he the =pus wpm al steeergag yestesdayre Imam OE
Gomm us Itrsery operant= =old be eeoosnidleeppee without
Crider beat mese= to wise, aad amo~y Cruiser was
introduced st the ceesseemenest of Uzi
_pmessdises, and
mods Ids bow to the =deem with the dulls poitte esi of a
pupil who had newly flaished hie educadon. He was eery
meek tweed in audition, lie form being ea road en a
glesSLatth a immignik Misdeal bright-
, binaL,:i the t &eh whit which be wee west
to grooms licemboys; sad his seat =bend
ag=se showed that all his old prtodices iv ths
so el the currycomb had bum occaphtely removed.
In short, Creme is now a peaceful, medal, inotatika mesa-
her of moiety. He might be warranted to cony •
without risk to the interests of the church, and if hettS
possibly be kernassed to a perambulator there would he leis
chance d oxidant at the sudden appearance of a red cost
than sometimes imppees with the present means of proud-
Mon. Cruiser is now nearly as thoroughly Remy as Reny
himself, and may open a school of his own as soon as he l
When Cruiser bad retired, his place wu taken by our
fried the zebra—no longer the fleece untameable animal cf the
first lesson, making frantic attempts to crunch his immense
wooden bit, screaming likeasuperannuated soprano, or fling-
tog his heels wildly about es ' he thought the air were fille&
with cotters' heads. The zebra had in the interim been tee
school, he had been " coached " with unremitting attention,
sad was now ready to god
or;or his "great go,' se
• thoroughly situated imam The audience had, pro-
bably for the Best time in the ef to. world, the Ow
'ars of oesbag this proverbiallr untameable animal quietly
ridden into the arena by Mr. Ram's groom end tandem
Moat ea amiably as if he were the pet mule of the Arch-
of Toledo. He walked, he trotted, he ambled, as it
from Ms balsam trained to the saddle, and althouugh hs wee
fitly vocal on ono or two occasions when asked to repeat
certain portions of his performance, such as tumbling down
at • Sod, and pointing his four feet simoltaneoualy to the
roof of the bdld his ejaculations were but the faint sighs
of a diecomolate ho'res, as compared to the hurricane of yens
whirls bed Merited the earlier stages of his career In the pur-
suit of knowledge under difficulties. It is true, he did let fly
his heels just once as he was retiring to his stable, but it wee
done In an airy, gentle, sort of manner—there was no harm in
it—it might have been the reminiscence of a dancing lesson, or
done merely by way of exercise. It was a harmless gambol, and,
amealally when observed from the right aide of the barrier,
bad nothing in it which could create alarm in the bona' of
the most timid. But there were evidences on his beautiful
skin that the struggle between the steed and his master had
been &me. Mr. Rum informed us that he had had more
trouble with this one pupil than all the four-footed animals
that had ever been placed under his are. He had, he said,
been told that the zebra was =tameable, that the naturalists
and moos had all said so, and that what they said must be
time. But he did not we a fig for either one or the other—
ha had never reed a word of their learned dualp-
tlane Lord Lyndhurst, be believed that a difficulty
meant • thing to be and having already imoosided
in training • pair of elks to w quietly in harness, he de-
Seabed to try what he could do with the zebra, all the
anthoriq of Buffos and Curter, and Goldsmith's "Ani-
mated Waters," notwithstanding. When the zebra was
first introduced into the academy his mode of proceeding on
any one metering his stable was, that to spring to the top of
the net, seize the cross-beam with his teeth, and hang ens-
panda in that position, while he kept his feet fees to destroy
anyone who should dare to approach him. His first lemon
was of four hours' duration, and gave more trouble than the
Seizing of four hundred homes, but at the end of it the whole
of Ida asters seemed changed, and he received his subsequent
Waft la great comparative patience sad tranquillity. And
upoa OW foot Mr. Huey reasons, with great show of pro-
bability, that there is nothing more absurd than to take •
thing for granted when we have an opportunity of putting It
to the test of experiment. His theory respecting the zebra,
es
expressed he his own quaint language, is that Ioll3e
" muff" hating once tried the animal, and failed in teaching
him, immediately wrote a book to, prove that he was on-
=usable, and that all the other ' muffs" in the world—a
rather numerous population, by the way—bad received the
book as gospel ever since. But Mr. Raney himself cares
little for the literature of his profession. Had all the books
in the Alexandrian library treated of horseflesh, he would
not very severely have censured the Caliph Omar for his
conflagration. His coarse of study has been pursued
amongst the wild horses of the prairies, and It has been
rather a severe one, too, for he Intones us that he has had
every bone in his body broken at one time or another except-
ing his right arm, which final fracture, we "appose, he re-
serves to give fele to his benefit. He took the wild animal
in hand with his usual courage and patience and perseve-
rance, and in the short space of time that Intervened between
yesterday's lecture and Its predecessor, during which time
ha gars him only four lemons, he succeeded in transforming
him from the yelling, lambing demon of the first period,
into the peaceable, obedient, docile quadruped we saw
yesterday, quiet in saddle or harness, and ad-
'nimbly adapted to give a novel effect to our civic
ceremonial, by carrying the Lord Mayor at the head of the
leanest promision. But as we before observed, thislatuly
result was not brought about without a seven
There wen marks yeaurda_y on the beautiful hide tram._
cared a stern resistance. The zebra had fought hard for his
traditional repateam, but is vain. He had at last loud his
muter, and henceforth must, as Mr. Rare y rather inem-
redly expressed it, become as tame as a donkey, adding one
more to the list of the four-footed servants of man.

After tlte iilollll of the
day, namely, the complete training of a hitherto unbroken
Aboo. The bores was a fine two-year-old, the property
of a gentleman prosiest, who vouched her his ignorance of the
emus* ; but thls wart hardly necessary, as any one could see,
from Ms wild, startled look when he found himself suddenly
In the memo of a large compsny, that be had not had
much experience either of stables or bridles. When intro-
duced, this colt was se thoroughly uneducated as when kJ-
lowkg his mother about the field, and at the expiration of
one s6ert hour be woe a thoroughly trained and broken
bane, fit der 'addle or bermes, and allowing himself to be
mounted with all the steadiness and docility of a lady's
karst ; and all this was done in the presume of about
two beaked people. There was no mystery ,no philtre,
no charm. The professor explained everything he wee
about to do, and gave • mann fur it ; and then,
by doing It, successfully proved that hie weaning
waa correct. There was no violets" no severity—the
bores wee not alarmed, nor exhausted, bat was soothed,
armed, persuaded, and at last gently coerced into j
thi=that was required from him ; and at the and. 0X iv
he walked quietly about, without the slightest
appease°s of excitement or fatigue. Not en his teacher,
who, Irbil* sparing the bores, takes an immeasity of work
out of himself, and evidently undergoes a anektned mental
tension, in order that the horse, whose Instinct is so sharp,
may not ere the slightest faltering In his proceedings. There
are momenta during the pretreated skink between ream
and brme force when, if the cheek were to lose • shade of its
colour, or the eye to quiver for an instant, the kite might
p bard with the dompteur ; but be is imputable, imper-
turbably good-hammed, and aserrktfagly resolute la all
hs2.22o..tdings. His system is • slow and gentle, but
pressure, the inked= el which Is sot to creak
but Qua ; and he seems rather to oretviace theism', of
the hopelemaine of resistance than to overcame that radi-
um, by the application of a greater force. If at the most
critical mosaeat he requires a riding-whip or a whet-
handkarehie4 he all. for It as coolly as one would far a
gime of lemonade, or as Nelson called for the mathsg-wax
during the bombardment of Copechagen. The kens is,
in truth, a pad moral lemon, not onl to the bone but te
the audience, sad epees • held of investiga ion the extent at
which we have at present bat very little notion. kr. Ram
Is not a philosopher, bat en orate,Intelligent, praolical men,
who bee his Ms been wakhkg the horns, and in fang so
beedieereseal some beta of the moot extrasediamily
il
tire dianikr. As it Yalma the seen wls=
dismitrer the hob, ad the philosophies who thee reran
theta eat to their pew iderowee, we would recominweed the
Mawr to go owl Silo to Kr. Esrey, end then to ponder
well both on what he says and what he proves.