Animals: Blood Lust

Dumb, quivering agony for the horse— dumb, quivering frustration for the lion. Such is the price of the circus act in which a lion leaps from its perch to a horse’s back, rides around the ring. A lion dearly loves warm horseflesh and of all living creatures a horse most fears a lion.

As it had for 16 years, a horse in Captain Schultz’s Circus performing in Rochester, N. Y.’s Centennial celebration last week, trotted a lion around the ring each afternoon & evening. Rain fell one afternoon and the board platform, set up outdoors in a park, grew wet and slick. In the midst of its act the horse slipped, nearly threw its rider. When the act was over the lion, a four-year-old named “Baby,” lunged at the horse’s throat. Its trainer was too quick for it, drove it from the ring.

That night 2,500 citizens of Rochester, which the late George Eastman helped make one of the most civilized communities in the land, gathered around Captain Schultz’s ring for the evening performance. The horse & lion act ended. This time “Baby” outsmarted Captain Schultz. One snap and twist of the lion’s jaws and the horse crumpled with a raw, red hole gaping in its throat.

It was too much for civilized Rochester. Fear and horror and the lust for blood were in its cry: “Shoot the lion! Shoot the lion! Shoot the lion!”

Attendants dragged the horse outside where a policeman shot it. “Baby” darted out the runway to his cage. The crowd pressed up around the steel-barred ring, still roaring, “Shoot the lion!” After a while the spectators went back to their seats. Once more “Baby” came into the ring, this time with five other lions and Miss Marion Knowlton, trim young animal trainer. Obediently “Baby” leaped over her, lay down beside her. There were dark red splotches around his tawny jaws.

Next day officials announced that a pony act would take the place of Captain Schultz’s Circus for the rest of the Centennial.