The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1897-12-09
A REALISTIC PICTURE.
Photographing Tiger In the Very Act
of Springing.

Star, recall seeing IN India about
two years ago a tiger photographed
under very exciting circumstances.
A party of natives were going about
in Ragpootana with a full grown
Bengal tiger, which they had tanned,
as they called it. What they really
did, however, was to keep it tightly
roped by all four legs and by the
neck, md each man held on by
main force to a stout rope. In this
way they led the tiger, or the tiger
led them, as you please, from place
to place on exhibition.
"Well, in the course of their wan
derings," continued the dealer,
'ssthey came to village near Bonn
bay, where photographer happen
ed to be passing through, and he,
hearing of the strange company,
sent for them. Now, about the only
| performance that the tiger, par
ticularly savage beast, had in his
repertory was killing animals, and
it occurred to the artist that an in
Simultaneous photograph of the great
| brute in the very act of striking
down it's victim would make an in
teresting picture. So arrangements
were made. A full grown buffalo
was procured and taken out to the
edge of the jungle, where it was
4O&1 Of n q
stake.
1.-The photographer took up his
station on foot outside the radius OF
the animals tether, and the tiger
was then brought up on the oppo-
site side and shown its victim At
once it fixed its dreadful, glaring
eyes on the doomed creature. It's
lips cu1led back in a hideous snarl,
and it began to move stealthily to-
ward the buffalo. The ropes were
then one by one slipped off, and
there, 20 yards apart, stood the two
beasts, but the buffalo gave NO sign
Of fright or even consciousness of
any danger
1T simply stood staring in a help
less sort of fascination at the ad
vancing brute. At first the tiger
had crouched, but now it stood
erect, and, with restless tail and
teeth all flashing out of the red
gums stepped slowly forward across
the intervening space. Foot by foot
the interval between the buffalo and
death, cruel, relentless, inevitable,
was diminished, yet the great horn
ed beast never stirred. It's eyes
were fixed on the tigers Its
breath came quick and hot from its
nostrils. Once and again and once
more the beast of prey paced on and
then stopped 1t was within strik-
ing distance.
1.-The buffalo's SIDES were now
heaving rapidly, and it's terror was
audible in its painting, and then,
quick as a flash of lightning, the
great striped body was launched
through the air. There was a dull
sound as it struck the buffalo, and,
as if smitten by a thunderbolt, the
huge animal, it's neck broken by
the blow of the tigers fore foot,
fell. At this moment, this indetina-
BILE point Of time. the artist touched
the trigger of the spring shutter,
and in the fraction of a second the
picture was on his plate-the tiger
in the act of striking-and none too
soon, for before the hand could
slip in another slide the buffalo's
knees bent beneath it, and the dead
hulk fell. The tragedy was COM
plete.
And the photographer
He had some trying moments.
Indeed there were times when it
looked as if the tiger preferred the
artist to the beef, and had the victim
retreated to the end of its tether the
beast of prey would have been as
near the one as the other, but it was
tame tiger, you know, and SO the
photographer got his sun picture.
"Neither alive nor dead was the
huge victim seen at the exact mo-
ment of time when it was sinking
under the weight of its dreadful
murderer. Swifter even than death
itself, the sensitive plate seized the
reflection of the collapsing buffalo
before it had time to die, and,
though the end was, humanity
speaking, instantaneous, the one
beat of the heart that interviewed
between the awful blow of the IL
gers paw and it's victims actual sur
render of existence sudiced for the
artist to catch and fix with unerrlng
fidelity the attitudes Of the slayer
and the slain Washington Star.
| Statutes In China and Japan.
/ In China. saws the Philadelphia