Mexico Missouri message., 1910-08-18


include such immense foreign animal firms as the
Hagenbacks 1t is paying business as indeed
are all businesses where the demand exceeds the
supply. The demand for wild beasts is far greater
than the supply, and a consequence prices are
good, and the dealers men of wealth. The extent
of this demand may be appreciated when one con-
siders that most of the great cities in the United
States have geological parks menageries, and
that the animals are constantly being purchased
by them. Then there are private collectors and
circuses and the like, that are ever ready to pay
the highest prices for desirable animals. The ami
NAL dealer who could secure and bring to this
country three or four gorillas would make a small
fortune. But no dealer has ever succeeded in do
ing this. The gorillas die in few weeks in cap
tivity; they could not stand ocean trip for a
day.
A rusty old German liner lumbers noisily into
Quarantine, and then lies motionless on the tide
An officer with broad, red, bewhskered face,
stands at the head of the companion ladder, and
he smiles peculiar smile, husky screaming
ululation rises from below. THE animals are get
ting hungry" he explains you know we have
several hundred of them the tween decks
Want to see them? All right" In another minute
probably the most competent animal man in the
world is at our side. He is not trainer or even
tanner; he is more He is sort of animal cook,
and his special business is the personal manage
ment of wild animal tours. He receives them
lions, tigers, leopards elephants everything else
at Hamburg, where they have been brought
fresh from their native wilds, and not only super
intends their shipment aboard q vessel bound for
New York, but he sails with them to make sure
that they arrive safely and in good health. And
be that If the tiger gets off on his diet and
needs a nice fresh live rabbit to tone up his sys-
TEN, this man will be aware Of the fact almost
before the tiger is-and, ergo a nice big jumping
bunny is sacrificed in accordance with the pre-
uyiId haas oata 10
one can never tell just when the big boa is go
ing to rouse from his last gorge; when he does
he wants toothsome young goat, and he wants
it quick. 1t is part of the animal mans duties
to anticipate the boa's appetite with all possible
expedition
He is quiet, unassuming man, with stoop
shoulders and bushy whiskers and he leads the
way to the tween decks without word Per
haps the uninitiated may believe that a tour
through the animal section of a freightcaTrying
vessel is an unimpressiye experience. Well let
them try 1t and see! This can be said at the out
set-it is somewhat different from a menagerie.
1t means something to come into close proximity
to hundred and odd wild animals that have been
ruthlessly snatched from their lairs in Africa or
Asia, or elsewhere, and clapped into little barred
boxes, not large dry goods cases; slammed
in and out of dark holes in the vessels OF Leveral
seas on the way to Hamburg; then finally placed
in the stygian tween decks of a German hooker.
The swinging cross seas OF the North Atlantic
have not improved their tempers or their nerv-
GUS systems, and the visitor at Quarantine is
quickly impressed with that fact. The howls and
wines and the banks cease abruptly as the stran-
gers enter For they bring the smell of land, and
the great beasts snif inquiringly, and hungrily.
too
The cages lined both sides Of the gloomy space,
with little passageway between the boxes Per-
haps this passageway was three feet wide, not
more The cages were piled two and sometimes
three deep. In the bottom cage for instance,
would be a tiger; in the next above smaller ami
NAL say, leopard or a lynx, and above that
parrot, or a bunch of neerkats. Think of 1t! A
three-foot passageway, with ferocious animals,
stretching along for 100 feet on all sides. Talk
about nightmares The reporters hair stiffened
out like so many pieces of wire, and he wished
most fervently that he had not come. 1t was more
agreeable he felt, to see these animals in a me-
nagerie where the cages are ample and the bars
an inch thick.
Better keep in the middle of the AISLE" says
one of the animal men; these fellows sometimes
reach out for you"
Words such as these. of course, hardly tended
to reassure.
II really was too dark to see much One
caught a view OF the cages stretching away in
gloomy perspective until lost in the darkness. of