HAMLYN'S MENAGERIE MAGAZINE. 
51 
"Save the Zoo Week" was extended to in- 
clude one day of the week following when Catholic 
Day was observed here, and when results came 
to be counted it was found that, instead of facing 
bankruptcy the next morning, the paid admissions 
of sixty thousand people were safely in hand ! 
The Zoo had been "saved" for a year at any 
rate, and thanks to this saving of the gardens, 
they have been thrust into the limelight so that, 
at the moment, three great motion picture pro- 
ducers are bidding for the right to operate them, 
subject to approval of a commission of citizens as 
heretofore, and pay well for the right of using, in 
their pictures, the varied animals and attractive 
grounds. 
Where, for it appears evident, throughout 
Cincinnati, that "Save the Zoo Week" has saved 
the Zoo for seeming all time ! 
The great public demonstration for saving 
the Zoo here, as narrated, is the more remarkable 
in the face of the fact that the Zoo- has never 
been, and is not now, a free public ground. 
While the popular version has long been that 
the fraction company of Cincinnati controls the 
Zoo there, the facts show otherwise. Back about 
the year 1901, when the motor took folk away 
from the city for pastime and new summer resorts, 
opened close by, diverted the crowds from the 
Zoo, things went from bad to worse, financially, 
with the gardens; creditors pressed, as they did 
now, and the Zoo was put up for auction and 
sale. The first of these auctions brough not a 
single bidder for the property, and the only al- 
ternative was to sell the animals, piecemeal, to 
whoever would buy them, and divide the grounds 
into building lots. Finally a company stepped in, 
in nick of time, to prevent that, and offered an 
amount sufficient to purchase the Zoo' and satisfy 
every creditor. Just what would occur next no- 
body quite knew. 
It was at that critical juncture, as luck would 
have it, that the present head of Cincinnati's 
street-railway system came to the Queen City as 
head of the roads. People were predicting he had 
come to take their cash home with him. He 
declared he had come here to stay ! To prove 
this, and show he was interested in the city of his 
new adoption, he bought the capital-stock of the 
new Zoo Company, and declared that he would 
now run the Zoo, though he would not spend 
on it more than he had put in. In order to give 
the city a share in the operation of the gardens, 
which meant so much to it, he then divided this 
new purchased stock among fifteen directors, 
presenting each of them with his block as gift. 
No revenue would accrue from this stock, how- 
ever; all proceeds of the Zoo, over expenses, were 
to go to improving the park; the directors in the 
non-profit-sharing corporation, further, could not 
sell the stock; it was made non-saleable; but the 
purpose of their holding it was simply to give 
them legal right to take actual interest in the 
place. 
These directors, representative citizens all of 
them, were then bidden to run the Zoo, as they 
cared to, only they must not come to the traction 
magnate for more funds to such ends. 
The Zoo at once began to pay; it not only 
"made" its expenses, but there was a little over 
beside; and things began to look prosperous here. 
The Zoo arranged to' put up> one of the finest 
Herbivora buildings in the world, a concrete struc- 
ture, costing $55,000 in all, and this took up not 
alone all the $40',000' of savings accumulated so 
for, but a balance, loaned by the traction com- 
pany, through the "goodl angel" of the Zoo so 
long — Mr. Shoepf, its supreme head. 
Then the unexpected happened. That same 
year came the panic and people's funds ran very 
low. That year the railways cut out the long 
popular "Sunday excursions" to the Queen City, 
which had been thronging the grounds. That 
year the cheap automobile put in its appearance, 
and took folk from the city; that year other 
resorts, with the advantage of newness to draw 
them, took the crowds. The Zoo began losing 
money, and the rival attractions aforesaid have 
been operating against it ever since. 
Year after year, instead of "breaking even," 
let alone paying its loan from the traction com- 
pany, the Zoo has had to borrow more and still 
more money from this, until the interest far and 
away outweighed the revenues in feres paid in 
that the company would not have had spent with it 
by folk going elsewhere if the Zoo did not exist. 
Finally the Zoo had come to owe rhe traction 
company a round $135,000', and the latter believed 
it should call ajialt. What, is more, the traction 
company hasn't the funds to loan any longer, for 
the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio is order- 
ing all such concerns as that to limit themselves 
to the specific purposes their title has in mind, 
and running a Zoo is hardly a part of a city's 
carrying trade. 
Now, therefore, that the traction company's 
aid is gone, the "angel's" patience exhausted, the 
Zoo seemed to be at its end. 
"Save the Zoo Week," however, came in 
season to save it. 
It saved it, and, in turn, it threw it into, the 
lime-light; until now, far from being the pawn of 
a sheriff for auction, its directors are able to 
demand their own terms. 
The 60 acres of wonderland are saved to the 
city — the finest giraffes in captivity — the last three 
