78 
ALMOST HUMAN 
I 
TIGERS 
MR. AND MRS. CAUDLE. 
When Douglas Jerrold wrote his account of the family life of Mr. 
and Mrs. Caudle he did a service to humanity, for he gave the woman 
with a grievance a true portrait of herself, and made the “nagger” 
appear so ridiculous that she has been out of fashion ever since, with, 
it is to be hoped, the result that fewer husbands — and wives! — have 
had to endure curtain lectures as an ordinary matter of routine. Along 
with the three bottle man and other relics of a barbarous past, the 
chronically bad tempered person has become an outlaw, and ostracism 
is disliked by everybody, with salutary effects. But even in the animal 
world there occasionally occur examples of unsound livers, with their 
consequent derangement of family life. At the gardens there once was 
a notable Mrs. Caudle in the shape of a vixenish tigress that made her 
husband’s life one perpetual misery. She growled all the time she 
was awake — she growled when she was hurt and she growled when 
she was not. So persistent did her snarling become that the monotony 
grew unbearable. Her mate was a fine, placid old tiger who did not 
seem to notice her growing ill-humor until it became so serious that it 
interfered with his resting or sleeping. She had then grown addicted 
to the habit of finding fault with everything and everybody, and was 
determined that he should listen to her complaints whether he wished to 
do so or not. At first he pretended he was not listening, and went 
about his daily round wrapped in a cloak of indifference; but she soon 
killed his philosophy. When at last her growls became unendurable, 
he showed his resentment by rising, stretching himself wearily, yawn- 
ing, and pacing the cage hastily as if in search of a spot where her 
hideous monotone could not penetrate. Occasionally he gave vent to 
a short grunt of disgust as he moved away; a strong indication of 
impatience that always added great zest to his wife’s ill-temper, for 
that gave her what she regarded as a full-grown reason for her attitude 
as a poor, neglected, lonely, ill-used victim of marital unhappiness. She 
would follow him about the cage with her teeth displayed hideously and 
uttering the never-ending growl. Then he would pause, look through 
the bars yearningly, as if he thought freedom had suddenly acquired 
new charms for him — did it not mean somewhere to rest? — and then 
