HAMLYN'S MENAGERIE MAGAZINE. 
in a very short timme realised considerably more 
than the purchase money by their exhibition. This 
purchase gave him a start, and he gradually be- 
came an importer of wild animals and a proprietor 
of one of the largest and finest collections on the 
road, while later on he started or acquired others. 
His small yellow business card bore the device 
of a tiger and the inscription : 
Wombwell, 
Wild Beast Merchant, 
Commercial Road, 
London. 
"All sorts of foreign animals, birds, etc., bought, 
sold, or exchanged at the Repository, or the 
travelling menagerie." 
He was a regular attendant at Bartholomew 
Fair, but the story is stold that on one occasion 
he nearly missed it, for a fortnight beforehand his 
menagerie was at Newcastle-on-Tyne. Hearing, 
however, that a rival was advertising that his 
collection would be the only wild beast show in 
the fair, Wombwell made a forced road march 
to London, and succeeded in arriving" in time, but 
in so doing lost his elephant, who- died from the 
exertions that it made. The news spread, of 
course, and the enterprising rival announced that 
his menagerie contained "the only living elephant 
in the fair," whereupon Wombwell had painted 
on a long strip of canvas the words, "The only 
dead elephant in the fair," and the quaintness of 
the idea gained him the victory. 
Thomas Frost when a boy always made a 
point of visiting Wombwell's show at Croydon, 
and tells us that he could never sufficiently admire 
the gorgeouslv uniformed bandsmen, whose 
brazen instruments brayed and blared from noon 
till night on the exterior platform, and the im- 
mense pictures suspended from lofty poles of ele- 
phants and giraffes, lions and tigers, zebras, boa 
constrictors, and whatever else was most wonder- 
ful in the brute creation or most susceptible of 
brilliant colouring. The difference in the scale to 
which the zoological rarcties within were depicted 
on the canvas, as compared with the figures of 
men that were represented, was a very character- 
istic feature of these pictorial displays. The boa 
constrictor was given the girth of an ox, and the 
white bear should have been as large as an ele- 
phant, judging by the size of the sailors who 
were attacking him among his native icebergs. 
Many of the animals used to perform, the elephant 
of Siam, lor example, uncorking bottles and de- 
ciding lor the rightful heir, while the two famous 
lions, Nero and Wallace, were shown off by the 
keeper, " Manchester Jack." These were the lions 
which Wombwell is said to have turned against 
several mastiff dogs, and Hone quotes an account 
of the incident from the "Times" which docs 
not make very edifying reading. According to 
Frost, the lion Wallace was sometimes called 
Nero, and the newspapers reported two of these 
lion baitings, though the story appears to have 
been an exaggeration in some particulars, for it 
is not absolutely clear whether one or both lions 
were baited. 
To show how popular W r ombwell's menagerie 
was, it may be mentioned that the takings 
amounted to £1,700 at Bartholomew's Fair in the 
year 1826; and about that time the old showman 
advertised "that most wonderful animal, the 
bonassus, being the first of the kind which had 
ever been brought to Europe," and great crowds 
flocked to see this very fine specimen of an Ameri- 
can bull buffalo, which was afterwards sold to the 
Zoological Society. It was while performing in 
W'ombwell's menagerie that poor Helen Blight, a 
so-called "lion queen," met her death. She had 
very imprudently struck a sulky tiger with her 
whip, and the enraged animal killed her before 
help could arrive, this causing a stop to be put to 
such performances by women for many years. 
Wombwell at one time had a really fine collec- 
tion, for he mustered twelve lions, besides lion- 
esses and cubs, eight tigers, a tigress and cubs, 
a black tiger, several leopards, a jaguar, a puma, 
several kinds of bears, three elephants, a fine one- 
horned rhinoceros, and several deer and antelopes. 
On one occasion a good deal of excitement was 
caused by an elephant in the early hours of the 
morning- walking through Croydon and forcing 
his way into a confectioner's shop, after which 
he helped himself liberally to whatever he found 
there. No other harm was done, and the delin- 
quent was speedily recaptured, but Wombwell, 
though he gained an excellent advertisement, was, 
of course, compelled to compensate the injured 
tradesman. 
Wombwell died at Richmond in his living 
carriage at the age of seventy-three, and was 
buried in Highgatc Cemetery, his coffin being 
made of oak from the timbers of the " Royal 
Ceorgc," and the menagerie was, according to 
his will, divided into three parts, which were be- 
queathed to his widow and relations. Mrs. 
Wombwell retired sixteen years later, and Fair- 
grieve, who succeeded her, sold the collection by 
auction at Edinburgh in 1872, and it is said that 
the proceeds were a little under £3,000 Wombwell 
is reputed to have had to pay £35 a day to keep 
his three large menageries going-, and, of course, 
he lost heavily through mortality. He was a 
painstaking showman who paid great attention 
to the care of his animals, and to the day of his 
death took an active interesl in all matters con- 
nected with the menagerie, often giving his ser- 
vants a practical lesson how things should be 
done. The name lingered long after the old 
show man had passed away. 
