Waterbury evening Democrat., 1892-03-16
AIN AWFUL DEATH
A Lion Tanner Torn to Pieces
by Wild Beasts.
THE SPECTATORS HoaR1F1ED
Terrible Ecsns Enacted in a Msnageri'
in an English Town.

Montana, the Negro Trainer. While En-
tering cage slipped and Fell 30 the
Floor, Where He was POunced Upon
by the Brutes and Mangled fin q Horrible
Manner-It Was Impossible to Save Him.
The Animals InsensibIe to Blows.
LONDON, March 16.-There was a big
crowd in the tent. Wombell's Menagerie
was showing in Hednesford, Stafford
shire, and people had come from the sur
rounding villages to see the celebrated
lion tanner, Delhi Montana.
The strong cage was rolled in. Three
immense bears and wicked-looking
hyena paced restlessly up and down the
narrow confines of their prison, growing
and showing their fangs.
Monuano sprang lightly into the ring,
a confident smile on his lips. He ap-
preached the cage and entered the outer
compartment. He was separated then
from the wild beasts only by an iron
bowed to the hushed audience, confident
and smiling still. He opened the iron
door.
AS he was about to enter the den of
the snarling animals, who covered before
him sulkily, half-threateningly, half
fearfully, he slipped and fell. The iron
door closed upon him with a crash.
Montana was at the mercy of the
beasts. His power over them was gone.
He tried to rise, when the hyena, which
was the first to realize that the spell was
broken, sprang upon him with a fierce
shrek that sounded to the horror
stricken spectators like the coarse laugh
Of demon.
Setting his fangs in the flesh Of the
non-tamer, tho beast mAngled it with
tooth and claw. Then in a burst Of wild
rage he tossed the bleeding man to the
other side of the cage.
The bears had all this time kept up g.
tremendous growing. The spectators
were shrieking with terror. Women
tainted from horror.
The bears seized Montana and tossed
him from one to the other, as a terrier
does rat, at the same time biting him
in a savage manner and tearing his bod y
and limbs cruelty.
The taste of blood enraged the brutes
still more. and they kept up their hor-
| rible sport with the negro's body for
fully fifteen minutes.
The attendants of the menagerie, who
were at first paralyzed by the frightful
spectacle, finally attempted to rescue
Montana. In spite of their attacks on
| the fierce beasts. they were unable to gel
the mans body from the cage for fully 6
| quarter of an hour.
| When the brutes were at last beaten
off, and the lion tanner was dragged from
the cage, he was still alive. He was tori
and mangled from head to foot, and was
completely covered with blood.
They carried him to q nearby hotel and
everything possible was done to relieve
| his intense sufferings. He fingered in
great agony for an hour.
While the sickening spectacle was go
ing on in the cage, those people who
were not chained to the spot by the very
horror of the scene, rushed for the exit;
fearing that the naddened brutes would
break from the cage and attack the
crowd
A doctor who witnessed the awful
scene said also that everything possible
had been done to get Montana out of the
cage, but that the animals seemed insen-
sible to all the blows and proddings ad-
ministered to them.