Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 2).djvu/299



A great deal of interest is often taken by the public in the money values of wild beasts, and consequently figures are often published for the public information. But these figures never represent a fixed value. An animal may cost £100 one week and £500 the next. The reason is that they are not things for which the sale is at all regular, and a little rise in demand causes an immediate leap in prices. Of course a trained animal is much more valuable than a wild one. Mr. Cooper has bought £800 worth of elephants, fairly young, trained them, and sold them for £12,000. At times, however, with no demand, an animal becomes such a "drug in the market" that, trained, it will fetch even less than the high price paid for it wild. Hagenbeck, of Hamburg, is one of the greatest dealers in wild animals, and also owns various travelling menageries. The recent show of animals at the Crystal Palace under Herr Mehrmann is his, and a very interesting show it is, although the animals are all very young. Jamrach, of London, and Cross, of Liverpool, are names familiar to everyone.

Through all his training, Mr. Cooper has never forgotten that the example of one animal is a good thing for another, and takes care that, as far as possible, his pets teach each other. It is a very usual thing to bring up a lion or tiger with a boarhound, and the affection which springs up between the pair is often marvellous. A tiger and a boarhound which Mr. Cooper possessed lived together in great amity until the boarhound died, whereat the tiger moped and was inconsolable. Another boarhound was not procurable at the moment, so a great sheep dog was found and placed in an adjoining cage, with bars between, for a day or two. The tiger took no notice. But when, by way of carrying the acquaintanceship a little further, the bars were withdrawn, the bereaved tiger sprang forward and killed the new dog with a blow of his paw.

Mr. Cooper has been "retiring" since 1883, but hasn't quite succeeded in tearing himself away from the animals yet. With his own beasts he never performed for less than £50 a week, his usual fee being much higher, £50 and more a night often being paid him for starring engagements. But Mr. Cooper is a man of a thousand, and we trust that the printing of these figures will not persuade many ambitious people to invest all their capital in elephants and tigers. A menagerie is an expensive thing to keep up, the animals die off, and fresh accessions of strength are always being wanted.

When Mr. Cooper will finally shut himself in his pleasant house at Smethwick, and leave his tigers for ever, it is impossible to say. But it will be long ere the British public will have the opportunity of seeing such another master of the brute creation. Even Mr. Cooper, however, has his weak points, and there is one animal which he has never tamed, or attempted to tame, common as the experiment is. Mr. Cooper has never been married.

Lion and tiger taming is not always so difficult a thing now as it was in Mr. Cooper's earlier days, and in those of Van