After having been killed in the newspapers half a dozen times, his back broken twice, and his head once bitten off by a tiger, Van did retire, undevoured, and died quietly in his bed about five years ago. Manchester Jack also retired from the profession, and kept an inn at Taunton for many years afterwards, dying in 1865. Van Amburgh and his trained animals were engaged by Ducrow and West during the season of 1838 at Astley’s, and proved a great attraction. Then came Carter, another lion-tamer, who appeared with his animals, in a drama specially written for them, as Afghar, a lion-tamer, in which part he drove a lion in harness and maintained a mimic fight with an animal called in the bills a tiger. I have not been able to ascertain whether this animal was really a tiger, a point upon which doubt arises from the fact of Carter’s collection being announced as containing a fine ‘Brazilian tiger,’ and from the application of the name by travellers and colonists imperfectly acquainted with zoology to every feline animal which is larger than a cat, and does not possess a mane. The beautiful striped animal properly called a tiger has very circumscribed range, being found only in the hot regions of Asia, south of the Himalayan mountains and east of the Indus. But the South African colonists call the leopard a tiger, and many travellers in the tropical regions of America speak of the jaguar by that name. Carter’s ‘Brazilian tiger’ was, of course, a jaguar; but his collection _may_ have contained a veritable tiger, and it _may_ have been the latter animal that he engaged in mimic conflict with on the stage. Tigers are not usually sufficiently docile to be trusted in such performances; but the possibility of their being so trained is proved by the fact that I saw a struggle between a man and a tiger, about five and thirty years ago, in a small show pitched on a piece of waste ground at Norwood. It was a rather tame affair, however, and, coupled with the fact that the tiger was the sole representative of the ‘group of trained animals’ announced in the bills, caused my boyish disappointment to vent itself, as I passed out of the show, in a remark on the discrepancy between the promise and the performance. ‘What can you expect for a penny?’ was the rejoinder of the shabby woman who acted as money-taker; and, though I felt that I ought to have seen at least another animal, I passed on, silently wondering how a tiger and several human beings could be fed upon the scanty receipts of a little penny show; for there was a drama produced, the hero of which was an English traveller, who underwent harrowing adventures among savages and wild beasts in Central Africa.