The founder, and for many years the proprietor, of these gardens was Edward Cross, whose menagerie at Exeter Change was once a London sight and the abode of the famous elephant Chunee. But Exeter Change, as old views of London clearly show, projected itself in an obstructive way across the pavement of the Strand, and in 1829 was removed for the formation of Burleigh Street. Mr. Cross then moved his animals to a temporary home in the King’s Mews (the site of Trafalgar Square). In the autumn of 1831 the menagerie found itself in South London. The Manor-House, Walworth, had attached to it a fine garden of fifteen acres and a lake of three acres, {84} which was not only a picturesque feature, but, as we shall afterwards see, a valuable theatrical asset as ‘real water.’ The owner of the Manor-House had already spent several thousands on his grounds, and it was not difficult for Cross to make the necessary alterations. The gardens were remodelled or laid out anew by Henry Phillips, author of _Sylva Florifera_, with flower-beds, walks, and undulating lawns, and an early guidebook to the gardens gives a list of its two hundred varieties of hardy trees. Aviaries were soon put up for the singing birds, and swings and cages for the parrots. The water-birds readily took to the little ponds, and the swans and herons were soon at home in the Great Lake, where they found an island haven overhung by drooping willows. The lions and tigers were caged in a great circular conservatory of glass (something like the palm-house at Kew), 300 feet long, and constructed nearly in the centre of the grounds. A still larger octagon building with enclosed paddocks was erected for the zebras, emus, and kangaroos. The _Companion_ to the gardens, issued in 1835, duly sets forth the catalogue of the animals and birds, and many numbers of the _Mirror_ magazine give neat woodcuts of the ‘latest additions,’ at that time apparently rare or curious, though now sufficiently familiar. The greatest popular successes were the three giraffes—the first ever seen in England—brought over in 1836 from Alexandria; the orang-outang; the Indian one-horned rhinoceros (1834); Nero, the lion who cost £800, and was stated to be twenty years old; and a gigantic tortoise, which small children used to ride. The Zoological Garden was inaugurated under distinguished auspices, and the prospectus of 1831 proclaims as patrons the Queen, the Duchess of Kent, the Princess Victoria, and an imposing array of Dukes and Marquises. The season tickets were a guinea, and the admission at the gates was from first to last one shilling. In this prospectus nothing was said about popular amusements, and for several years nothing much was done in this direction beyond anniversary fêtes of the fancy fair description. On such occasions performers like Ramo Samee, the sword-swallower, and Blackmore of Vauxhall made their appearance, Blackmore’s function being to cross the lake on a rope sixty feet high.