must be careful not to strike 'em hard across the back. You'd be
surprised to know how easy it is to break a lion's backbone, especially
if it's a young lion."

[Illustration: THE TAMER'S TRIUMPH. READING HIS NEWSPAPER IN THE LION'S
CAGE.]

In support of this statement that lions are delicate, I remember
hearing old John Smith, director of the Central Park Menagerie, set
forth a list of lions' ailments, and the coddling and doctoring they
require. Lion medicine is usually administered in the food or drink, but
there are cases requiring more heroic measures, and then the animal must
be bound down before the doctors can treat him. It should be remembered
that lions in city menageries are more dangerous than circus lions,
since they are either wild ones brought straight from the jungle and
never tamed or rebellious ones, anarchist lions that have turned against
their tamers, perhaps killed them, and have finally been sold to any
zooelogical garden that would take them.

"When we have to rope a lion down to doctor him," said Smith, "we drop
nooses through the top bars and catch his four legs, and let down one
around his body. Then we haul these fast, and there you are. You can
feel his pulse or give him stuff or pull out one of his teeth or
anything."

"It must be pretty hard to pull a lion's tooth," I remarked.

"Not very. Here's the forceps I use; you see it isn't very big. This is
for the upper jaw, and that other one is for the lower jaw."

I made some remark, meant to be facetious, about not giving lions gas,
but the old man took me up sharply. "Certainly we give 'em gas. How else
in the world do you think we operate on 'em? They get chloroform same as
a person. I have a bag for it that fits over a lion's head, and pulls up
tight with a string. In the bag is a sponge saturated with chloroform,
and the first you know off goes Mr. Lion into quiet sleep, and you can
do what you like with him. But you have to be mighty careful not to give
him too much, and look sharp at his heart action, or you'll have a dead
lion on your hands. Say, I've found out one thing chloroforming lions
that lots of doctors don't know. It's this, that if a lion comes back
hard to consciousness after you've put him to sleep, you can help things
along by catching hold of his tail and heaving him up on his head. That
sends the blood down to his brain, where you want it, and pretty soon
you'll see his muscles begin to twitch, and back he comes.