We retain the services of our wild man with some difficulty. His wife, a very indiscreet colored woman from Vermont, has a pernicious habit of appearing inopportunely and accusing our black prize of gambling away his wages and not providing for the support of his family. She is ample of form, emphatic in manner, and prodigal of words, and when she begins to bellow and boister, side-show proceedings stop abruptly and the overwhelmed orator hangs his diminished head and yields verbal supremacy. It is not until she receives from the management positive assurance of a cash advance that she can be persuaded to retreat. At these times the wild man is a very meek and subdued person, and no amount of urging will lure him from the security of his cage until his wife is well out of town. The original circus wild man, the denizen of Borneo, was white, but his successors have almost invariably had dark skins. “Waino” and “Plutano,” exhibited together, are now before the public. “Tom” and “Hattie,” wild children from Australia, are dead. “Wild Rose” and “Wild Minnie” are still in the field of savage honor, as is “Old Zip, the What-is-it?” whose head is cone-shaped, and who utters mournful guttural sounds. The life of the professional wild man is an unhappy one at best. The story is told of a Baltimore, Md., colored man, who, finding himself penniless in Berlin, Germany, enlisted as an untamed arrival from Africa with a small American circus then playing abroad. He endured the torture he was compelled to undergo for a month and then stole away to a hospital. He was required to explain how and why he came there. “You see, boss,” he observed sadly, “I’se been working here, got ten dollars a week to play wild man. I was all stripped ’cept around the middle and wore a claw necklace; had to make out as if I couldn’t talk. ’Twas mighty tiresome to howl and grin all day. Then times got hard. I had to eat raw meat and drink blood. The circus man, he stood off as if he was afraid of me and chucked meat on the floor to me. I had to lean over, pick it up in my teeth and worry it like I was a dog. It was horse meat and pretty tough, boss, but it brought crowds for a while. Then it got drefful cold for a nigger with no clothes on and they put a snake around my neck. I couldn’t stand that, so I’se come to the hospital.” He was given clothes and medical treatment, which he sorely needed, and a kindly American sent him back to Maryland.