‘Wombwell’s,’ said the reporter of a London morning journal, about three years ago, by way of introducing a report of the sale of Fairgrieves’s menagerie, ‘had its great show traditions; for its founder was a showman of no ordinary enterprise and skill. He built up the menagerie, so to speak, and he made it by far the finest travelling collection of wild animals in the country. His heart was in his work, and he spared nothing that could help it forward. Tales of his enterprise are many. He never missed Bartlemy fair as long as it was held; once, however, he was very near doing so. His show was at Newcastle within a fortnight of Bartlemy’s, and there were no railways. He had given up all intention of going to the fair; but, being in London buying specimens, he found that his rival—a man named Atkins—was advertising that his would be the only wild beast show at the fair. ‘Forthwith Wombwell posted down to Newcastle, struck his tent, and began to move southward. By dint of extraordinary exertions he reached London on the morning of the fair. But a terrible loss was his. The one elephant in the collection—a fine brute—had so over-exerted itself on the journey that it died just as it arrived at the fair. Atkins thought to make capital of this, and placarded at once that he had “the only live elephant in the fair.” Wombwell saw his chance, and had a huge canvas painted, bearing the words that within his show was to be seen “the only dead elephant in the fair.” There never was a greater success; a live elephant was not a great rarity, but the chance of seeing a dead elephant came only once now and then. Atkins’s was deserted; Wombwell’s was crowded.’ It is not easy to reconcile the keen rivalry between the two shows which this story is intended to illustrate with the fact that they never visited Croydon fair together, but always agreed to take that popular resort in their tours in alternate years. The story may be true, or it may be as apocryphal as that of the lion and dog fights with which the readers of another London morning journal were entertained three months previously, when the tragical incident of the death of the lion-tamer, Macarthy, had invested leonine matters with more than ordinary interest. ‘Did you ever hear of old Wallace’s fight with the dogs?’ an ex-lion-tamer was reported as having said to the gentleman by whom the conversation was communicated to the journal.