slightest surveillance. In nine cases of every ten a momentary adherence to this departure would result in disaster.
WHERE STEADY NERVES ARE IN DEMAND
The best men of the profession I have ever known have all assured me that the stupidest animal is quicker to detect the slightest relaxation of a trainer's watchfulness than is the keenest trainer to observe the abnormal and hostile mood of his pupils. For this reason no trainer or performer should be allowed to enter a cage unless he is in a normal frame of mind—sober, in full command of all his faculties, and not subject to any distracting influence.
Most of the tragedies of the profession are chargeable to a disobedience to this rule. The unfailing brute instinct at once detects the fact that the trainer has let down the bars of his mind, and then comes the long-delayed attack!
Never do I tire of watching a good trainer work his animals, especially those fresh from their native wilds and full of snap and spirit. What sport more splendid and royal can man imagine than that of placing his life in imminent peril for the purpose of putting a wild
