Alas, poor Jumbo! Here's the fruit Of faithless Barnum's greed of gain; How sad that so well-trained a brute Should owe his exit to a train! The elegy on Charles Jamrach, the celebrated naturalist and menagerie-keeper of St. George's-in-the-East, who died in September, 1891, at the age of seventy-six, was better deserved. Charles Jamrach, the most notable of the dynasty which for three-quarters of a century enjoyed a practical monopoly of the trade in wild animals in this country, was a "stout fellow": Frank Buckland describes his single-handed struggle with a runaway tiger in 1857; he appears in the D.N.B.; and _Punch_, in his lines on "The King of the Beasts," after describing the lamentations of the animals at the Zoo, ends up on a note of genuine regret:-- O Jamrach! O Jamrach! Woe's stretched on no sham rack Of metre that mourns you sincerely; E'en that hard nut o' natur, the great Alligator, Has eyes that look red, and blink queerly. Mere "crocodile's tears," some may snigger, but jeers Must disgust at a moment so doleful; For Jamrach the brave, who has gone to his grave, All our sorrow's sincere as 'tis soulful! PRINTED IN ENGLAND BY CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED, LONDON, E.C.4. _A complete Index will be found in the Fourth Volume._ End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mr. Punch's History of Modern England Vol. III of IV, by Charles L. Graves