The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-08-26
N u wy OR ELS M 8.
From Our 0tOn Correspondent

From Our 0iCn Correspondent
New YORK, August 26, 1869.
Yesterday afternoon, in one of the Third Ave-
nue. cars, l saw
A WOman's Suffrage Woman.
She was one of that kind which is made to order.
She was dressed in brown Holland and brown
straw hat of the form of an inverted soup plate.
Half the people who saw her asked who was that
man dressed as q woman, and the other half in
quired who was that woman that looked like
man. No one knew. OF all around her she seemed
totally unconscious. She was busy writing. Her
article was entitled "Crowing Hens" and when
that is published it will probably be followed by
another on "Hatching Roosters" She used
small slips of brown paper and composed with
a blending of feminine facility and masculine
malignity. She was the sort of woman whom
you would not like to offend, although in her
youth she might have realized the portrait which
the authoress of "Passion Flowers in "Pen-
dennis" paints of herself at that period
"a violet shrinking mean!y
Where blows the March wind keenly-
A timid fawn,
BY wildwood lawn,
Where oak boughs rustic greeny.'
The days, however, when she was a fawn and
violet have long since elapsed and life, for
her has settled down into writing strong-minded
editorials in city railroad cars.
In one of those peregrinations which it is my
pleasure to indulge in occasionally, l stumbled
the other day into a certain piece of ground
which is to the rear of a house on the Bowery,
and found
Sort of Private Menagerie.
1t is the property of man engaged in the
wild-beast business, of which there are several
| representatives in New York. These gentle
men are naturally fond of wild beasts, and de-
l Ill HI
| them. The backyard in question is dark and
| dirty Overshadowed by the dead walls of
| houses intersecting one another, and lined vita
| cages which contain wild beasts. Upon one
side of you, you hear lion roar, upon the other
| apes gibber and leopards change their spots
| for if they don't like one they go to another
In brief, this place is one of the most celebrated
| wild-beast rendezvous in New York. Here are
| Gagged and fed the beasts that subsequently form
| the most attractive features of travelling me-
| nageries and circuses II you visit one of these
places you visit them all. They have their
| good and bad seasons, their agents
and correspondents, their fluctuations of trade
just as people in all other businesses have. The
scale of prices of wild beasts in New York is
| regulated by their rarity, SIZE species, and the
| expenses attendant upon their capture and keep.
| The hippopotamus and the gnu are the most
| highly priced of all wild beasts. Showmen, in
| deed, may be said to be always on the lookout
| for something gnu. 1t brings about $500; a
| hippopotamus brings $4,000; lion, $4,000; an
elephant, S4500; giraffe, $4,000; a Bengal tiger,
| $2O00 leopard, 5000; a hyena, $500; an os-
| trich, $500. Within the last three years one of
the foremost houses have sold six giraffes,
two hippopotami, twenty lions, twelve
elephants twelve ostriches, and eight hyenas,
making an annual business of about $40, 900.
One of the chief occupants of the managerial
premises into which l introduced the reader u
few sentences back is a female monkey who is
the most celebrated pickpocket in New York.
| Her name is Vic, and she can whisk the watch
out of your pocket with the imperceptible touch
| of a Robert Houdin or a BlitZ. Most of these
beasts are cannibals of the deepest dye. A large
trade likewise is carried on in mon
keys, which are valuable according
to their various capabilities. a boa-con.
strictor fetches $3.50, q black snake $40. These
snakes like the Chinese, are fond of rats; but il
they are oyerfed their temper becomes indie
scribably malignant. Their food appears tC
affect their brains and their disease may be sale
to be q rush of rats to the head The bird bust
ness in this, as in all large cities, forms a dis
tinct trade in itself and shall be treated of some
day in separate letter. The nationality o
most of those engaging in the beast business il
German. The principal firm in this city is tina
of two brothers in Chatham street. In all New
York, not more than one hundred people, al
told, are in any manner connected with thi
unidue vocation. ALI BABA.