The Newtown bee., 1879-04-15
Clipping a Tigers Claws.

The feat of clipping the ingrowing claws of the royal Bengal tiger "Jim " was accomplished at Philadelphia with great deal of difficulty. On account of the lack of constant attrition on rough ground, such as they would have had in the jungle, Jim's claws had heightened to an unnatural size and grown deeply into his paws, exposing the animal to ah attack of lockjaw. Hence the clipping The well-known animal trainer, Mir. A. J. Forepaugh, was retained for the opera ton, and appeared early this morning at the carnivora house of the Zoo, accom- panied by Dr. Chapman, the physician. Arthur E. Brown, the superintendent, and four keepers. MT. Forepaugh had provided himself with a strong three quarter inch rope, looped at one end, a long pole and four short halfinch cords, also looped, thick knotty hickory club and pair of sharp wire nippers.
 The loop of the larger rope was placed on the end of the long pole and thrust into the cage. At the instant the tiger leaped into the furthest corner with a terrific roar which startled the other ani- mals, and the lions, tigers, leopards, and hyenas all howled in chorus. The loop, however, was run over "Jim's neck and he was gradually drawn, in spite of his struggles, to the front of the cage MT. Forepaugh quietly directed his assist ants to secure the animal in the front of the cage. "Now his..feet, and the fore feet were in the loops with the aid of an iron scraper, and the tiger, bewildered at the tactics of his supposed enemies, shook his head, roared, and for few seconds strug- gled fiercely to get loose, but the loops of the other ropes were slipped on the hind feet, and he was thrown on his side and drawn up to the front of the cage with his hind feet sticking clear through, and the fore feet to the edge.
 In this position he was secured and safety cords attached to the ends, each one of the latter being held by one of the assistants, so that as soon as the opera tion was completed all the feet could be loosened at once. As soon as the feet were thus secured the rope around the neck was cast off, so that the tigers head was free. One of the keepers was then stationed near the head, so that in case he bit at the ropes binding the feet or at the operator he could thrust the hard wood knotted club into his mouth for him to bite on. This became necessary so often that the hard club was chewed into pulpy brush.
 "All ready" said MT. Forepaugh, and taking in his right hand a large, sharp wire clip, had each ingrowing claw in turn pried from the flesh and strengthened out and clipped off to the required size. The right hind foot was the wol S1 one of the claws, having grown fully an inch into the flesh and caused the wound to intlame and lester. As soon as this, with part of the outer shell, which had been shed into the wound, had been removed, the tiger appeared to quiet down and submitted to have the rest of the claws of the same foot clipped without making much struggling. The right front paw was also badly lacerated and inflamed. The claws were clipped in every case very quickly and successfully. As soon as the claws of each foot were clipped, the operator rubbed burnt alum into the festered wounds to burn away the proud flesh, and then poured over the wounds balsam of fir to heal the same.
 After all the claws had been clipped. MT. Forepaugh, stepping back, cau- toned his assistants to be ready to pull the safety cords at the word. So the animal, freed from all the cords at once, sprang to his legs like flash and jumped to the rear of the cage, where he first licked his bloody chaps, and, squatting, soothingly licked his paws. Appar- ently satisfied that they were still in his possession, he began pacing his cage, showing evident signs of having experi enced great relief from the operations performed on him. The whole operation occupied only twenty minutes, and was very satisfactory to all parties.