among strange, untrained animals for the first time, Mr. Cooper, after friendly overtures, stroking, fondling, and so forth, will set them running about, leaping, and playing, as the fancy may strike them. With unfailing discrimination he thus judges each creature's proper "line," and encourages its efforts in that direction; this lion is kept going at leaping, that tiger at rearing upon its hind legs and placing its paws on the tamer's shoulders, and so forth.
Whatever may be said to the contrary, there is no shadow of doubt that the tamer who is master of his profession, rules his charge by fear, but—and this is an immense "but," worthy of very large capitals—it is not the sort of fear which is engendered by brutal whipping and driving. When a man first calmly enters a cage of wild animals they have an instinctive fear of him, and one main object of the trainer's art is to keep alive this wholesome feeling through all his dealings with them. But the influence which this fear gives him must be exercised rather through the medium of dignified threat than actual violence. A cut of the whip is a necessary thing on proper occasion, but it needs a forbearing discrimination to tell when the proper occasion arrives. The whip-cut loses its terror if it becomes an every-minute affair. Of course it must be remembered that with a wise trainer, who loves his animals, the animals soon learn to return the affection, and this gives colour to the "all done by kindness" theory. It is all done by kindness—of a wise and severe sort. For it must be remembered that with all their affection the brutes still remain dangerous and treacherous in their nature, and variable in their moods. Their love is to a large extent a love born of fear, but that there is real affection in it is doubtless. If Mr. Cooper visits a menagerie nowadays where any of his old animals are exhibited, they will crowd toward the bars of their cages with every expression of recognition and welcome.
His performances have always been of the "quiet and superior" order—really a more difficult thing than the showy, sensational, tear-and-fury sort of thing which goes down with many vulgar sightseers. It has been a maxim with trainers who favour the latter sort of performance that the man should never take his eyes from the animals, and should avoid any position but the erect, as involving an almost certain attack, and for ordinary trainers the rule is doubtless a good one. But Cooper, in his perfect control of his charge, was able to disregard it most completely. He would lie at full length in the middle of a cage containing seven lions, and close his eyes as if asleep, whereupon his great lion "Victor Emmanuel," without any word of command, would walk up to his master, and, gently lifting his head with a paw, would lie down beneath it, so as to form a soft pillow. Cooper would then, still as if asleep, move his hand within reach of the lion's mouth, and the faithful brute would continue licking it until the tamer arose. Now this was a quiet, unostentatious performance compared with the sham "lion-hunts," and "terrible struggles with a tiger" which one is familiar with, but, as an exhibition of perfect training and confidence in its result, it beats them all.
Another secret of Mr. Cooper's success is, perhaps, that he is almost a teetotaler, never drinking anything stronger than light dinner wine. He has a strong opinion, which he often expresses, that nearly all the fatal accidents to performers with wild animals have been due to intemperance, often combined with, or leading to, brutality. Again and again men have entered cages in a muddled condition, lashed about recklessly among the animals, until a slight slip or stagger has been the signal for a fearful death. The deaths of John Carter and Macarthy may not unjustly be cited as cases in point.
One thing—in itself requiring perfect sobriety—is very essential in all performances in which lions, and tigers, and leopards leap about in proximity to the tamer, and that is that the man must remain perfectly still. A movement of an inch may cause an animal to miscalculate its jump, and, brushing roughly against the tamer, knock him down. Then he is as good as done for—the whole cage full will tear him. The mere running to and fro of the great clawed beasts across the prostrate body will tear life from a man in almost no time. Cooper often taught a leopard to jump from a shelf to his head and shoulders and back again. The slightest movement or "give" to the weight of the animal would, of course, have called out the long claws to save a fall, with a result that may be easily imagined. At times, in leaping past, an animal will make a dab, half playful, half vicious, or perhaps even all
