The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-01-01
STAGE ANIMALS.

Many Little Tricks They Fall Into
 From Vanity.
 If they can roll an eye, they never cease to roll so long as they think any one is looking; and if they can switch a tail they switch it. This weakness for showing off gets them into trouble sometimes, just as weaknesses in gen. eral get real animals into trouble. Hence, an elephant with fine freely moving tail began to switch that tall with great vigor while on it's way to the front of the house. Just as it was emerging from the side into view, the wooly end of the tail in it's abandoned flights caught a gas jet and at the same instant caught fire The fire spread as rapidly as dry gummy canvas and dry withies can make it burn and the ele- phant appeared in blaze. Fortunate ly for the men inside the flames were on the top and the first intimation they received of the conf1agration was a feeling of something cold striking them on the back. It was water and the wa ter increased and they were drenched and mortified, for they knew not whence it came, or what 1t meant, or what might come next.
 One of the cleverest elephants is that made for celebrated performer. It
 picks up biscuits with its trunk and puts them into it's mouth The secret of the prehensile power of the trunk lies in pair of pincers with which it Is f1t- ted and which are, of course, concealed. Monsters of the deep" on the stage are
 usually meant as caricatures; red her rings, bloaters or haddocks run easily
 to four feet long; and though they have all been taken long enough ago from their native element to be already
 cured and offered for sale In the mar ket, unblushingly show every sign of life. Even the lobster, though it has
 been boiled, as it's color shows-for 1t is red-never ceases to move its mandibles and antennae while before the public. A swordfish is, no doubt very impress | sive creature on the stage, the sword, naturally, receiving great emphasis | from the maker and special publicity | from the men inside. It is thus a com mon thing for that sword to get in trou- ble, and for the poor fish in stage pro-
 cession to ask a harmless mussel or | oyster to take care of my sword! A dragon thirteen feet long, and emitting | flames, makes us think that we must have got away from canvas, wicker | work and paper, else the flames are certainly not real. The flames, how ever, are real enough. and man in side ignites and fans the spirit-satura- ted cotton-with his breath. It is out of a canvas mouth, too, that they come,
 but that mouth is fitted with asbesto os cloth.
 Stage rats introduce us to another method Of locomotion on the part of in animate straw and canvas. Rats are made big enough to admit small boys in such cases, of course, the boys do the
 moving. But the common stage rat,
 which sells at three shllings sixpence, is usually stuffed with straw. There is no man or boy or other animate thing inside. Power to move is imparted to them from without, by means of insisi- ble wires attached to their noses and manipulated from behind the scenes.
 Their movement consists of only a glide and that is as nearly as possible the true movement of the real rat. it being the movement that creates the least dis turbance, and is. therefore, most suita- ble for a hunted animal. Stage rats glide in a straight line, or they may
 zigzag and perform in more or less ella
 borate ways, according to the arrange ments made on the stage. These ar engagements comprise the fixing or pull | leys on the floor or in the wall or else where, and the laying of invisible wires over them. The more elaborate the ar
 rangement of pulleks the more varied will be the lines of movement traced by | the rats.-Penny Magazine.
 MIR. CLEVELAND IN PRINCETON. | Nerv fa1u nennle know much about the