A Wholly New and Novel Act, with Monsters

IN LATE 1956, THE CLASSIC CIRCUS DIED AND SO DID SUSAN Malone, the world’s youngest lion tamer. At six she had been known as the Laughing Maid, for taunting the lions, leaping lightly out of the way of their subsequent rage. At ten, she’d retired to Pensacola and taken possession of the defunct King Circus’s auctioned-off lions. She was bitten in the thigh and arm before being dragged off into the bushes and eaten for breakfast.

In early days, “circus” described a wide variety of attractions, from a simple caged animal to a tent with featured aquatic acts, aerialists, equestrians, clowns, and bicycle races. There were bands and ballets and even sea battles fought in wide, water-filled arenas. The beasts languished in cages, more portable zoos than animal acts. Joseph Handler’s eighteenth-century show, “A Wholly New and Novel Act, with Monsters as Seen in their Natural Environs, TERRIFYING AND SHOCKING,” was in fact just a small, barred wagon crowded with malnourished leopards illegally smuggled in from Madagascar.

Then Isaac A. Van Amburgh stuck his arm and head into a cage of lions in 1862. And the crowd, as they say, went wild.

Famous Ringling Bros. lion tamer Daniel Descartes died in 1892 after his arm was torn off, exactly ten years to the day after his brother was killed. Both were mauled by the lions they worked with, in what observers said were unprovoked attacks. Three other family members were hurt or killed by the family business in the intervening years. One cousin told his local paper it was the price one paid to make bargains with the wild. Animals rarely honor such bargains, and humans even less often. He had chosen to open a butcher shop instead.

Elephants and bears were introduced to circuses well after the big cats, to significantly more fanfare. They were also more dangerous, their attacks more sensational. Some claimed, of course, that this was the whole point. Revenge as a story, attack as an art form. A wholly new and novel act.

In all instances, the animals’ revenge was short-lived. Topsy was, of course, electrocuted, and Mary hung from a crane. Dino and Barry were shot, Marvin poisoned, the King Circus lions all quietly sold for their meat and bones. In some cases the executions were public and publicized; in some cases the deaths were kept quiet. In a few cases the animals were allowed to live—not because trainers were softhearted, but owners were thrifty and refused to buy new animals. In all cases the animals were eventually pronounced “destroyed,” and in all cases they probably were.

Thomas Macarte, known as Massarti, was scalped and torn apart by four lions in front of a full house. Children suffered nightmares so severe they said they carried them in the blood, like a disease. Their descendants claim they still dream of dreadful sounds and empty rings, blood spattered over the sawdust-covered floors.