Connecticut western news., 1882-12-20
HOW HE FAMED THEM.
Martins Way of Ruling FerOcious Beasts.
From the Baltimore News

From the Baltimore News.
 A curious history, and one that sheds many gleams of light upon the charac- | ter of beasts in the menagerie, is that of Henri Martin, the lion tanner, who died, ninety years old, quietly at his home "among his collections of butterflies and | his books of botany" Martin, accord ing to his own letters, began to cultivate his gift of control over animals in the by acquiring an extraordinary power over horses, which he taught every trick known to the profession, and some of which have hardly been exactly paralleled. From this he went on to tanning wild beasts, and soon after he had started business as part proprietor of 8 menagerie he had labored eight months in training a royal tiger and had taught spotted hyena to pick up his gloves. He was never seen with a whip in his hand; but he crossed his arms and gave his animals the word of command to leap on and off his shoulders, and he con- sidered his method infinitely superior to that of the trainers who go through their business chiefly by the terrorism of heavy whip and revolver. Their beasts obey them, but, he said, they are not tanned as minA were, and when one of them rebels you can judge the tragic result from the tragical end of Lucas."
 One day Martin told his wife that he anticipated trouble with his lion Co., bourg, who was then in @ dangerous state of excitement. She begged him to put off the performance, but he said: "No; if I should do it once I should have to do it every time the animals have ca prices" The next night his foreboding were fulfilled. Instead of performing his part properly, Cobourg crouched low and dug his talons into the stage, and his eyes fared. Martin had no weapon at command except dagger in his belt ''I have said never whip" Instead of obeying orders the lion leaped at Martin, and @ combat occurred, in the course of which the lion took Martin up in his mouth and shook him in the air. Martin struck the animal over the nose for a second time, and then, feeling his strength exhausted, gave himself up for lost, and and turned his back to the beast, so that at the next spring it might attack the back of his neck, and so ''make an end | of the business. s'But two seconds passed-two seconds that seemed to me an eternity. I turned around. The lions mood had changed. He looked at the audience; he looked at me. I gave the sign to go. He went away as if nothing had happened
 It was fourteen weeks before Martin could perform again, but then the lion worked as well as usual, and continued to do so for four years without any more caprices.
 In tanning one of his tigers Martin be- gan by taking the brute's attention of the door of the cage, and then, armed with a dagger, went rapidly into the cage and stood looking at the tiger, which, for some minutes, lay motionless, staring at him. Then, feeling shiver, and knowing that if the tiger saw it all would be over with him, he went swiftly out.
 At the end of fortnight he went again into the cage, and this time stay. ing there half an hour. A third time he paved the tiger visit of three-quar- ters of an hour. The fourth time the tiger, trembling at first, lay down before the pigmy who braved it. To tame a hyena, Martin wrapped his legs and arms with cords and protected his head with handkerchiefs, and then, walking into the cage, went straight to the ami nal and offered it his forearm. The hyena bit it, and the tanner looking steadily in its eyes, stood motionless. The next day he repeated the experi- ment, substituting leg for an arm, ''and all the time Martins black pupils were flashing into the gray eyes of the hyena. The beast gave up, cringed and smelled the feet of the master''
 Martin tanned his subjects by his per sonal influence alone, and Charles Mo- dier once said of him: "At the head of an army Martin might have been Bona parte. Chance has made man of genius @ director of menagerie."