CHAPTER I. 
MY LIFE IN THE ANIMAL TRADE. 
THE great zoological park at Stellingen, and the huge trade 
in living animals of which that park is the headquarters, had 
a very humble and almost accidental origin. My father was 
a fishmonger trading in St. Pauli, a suburb of Hamburg, and 
one day in March, 1848, it happened that some of the fisher- 
men, whom my father employed, and who were under con- 
tract to deliver over to him their entire haul, captured in 
their nets no fewer than six seals. My father was very fond 
of animals and greatly interested in natural history, and 
thus it occurred to him that the curiosity with which he him- 
self examined the animals might, perhaps, be shared by his 
fellow-citizens of Hamburg, and that the interest which the 
seals would probably arouse could be made profitable to 
their owner. He therefore exhibited the creatures in two 
huge wooden tubs at our house in Spielbudenplatz, St. 
Pauli, charging an entrance fee of one Hamburg shilling 
(= about a penny) per head. A considerable number of 
people came to inspect the beasts, and my father was so 
delighted at the success of his idea that he decided to follow 
up this new line of business and take the seals to Berlin. To 
those who know the twentieth-century Berlin the idea of 
taking a few common seals to be exhibited in that city will 
no doubt appear extremely ludicrous; but the Berliners of 
those days were very much less sophisticated than their 
modern representatives, and flocked with great interest to see 
my father’s show. Owing to the revolutionary movement 
which was at that time daily growing in force, my father did — 
I 
