thousand men, women and children.

I wish to linger over the details as briefly as possible. I am thankful
to say that I was not present, and that I am unable to describe the
occurrence from personal observation.

Poor little Charlie and his mother, sitting close to the cage, were the
very first victims. The child himself, I think, and hope, never knew
what hurt him. His skull was fractured by one stroke of the brute's
paw. Signor Martigny escaped with his right arm slit into ribbons. Big
Joe Pentland, the clown, with one well-directed stroke of a crowbar,
smashed Old King of the Forest's jaw into a hundred pieces, but not
before it had closed in the left breast of Charlie's mother. She lived
for nearly an hour afterwards, but never uttered a syllable. I wonder
if she was conscious. I wonder if it was permitted to her to realize
what her sin--for sin it must have been, in contemplation, if not in
deed--had brought upon herself and her child. Had she paid her way into
the circus, and entered in front, instead of coquetting with the
property-man, she would have been sitting under a different part of the
tent, and neither she nor Charlie would have sustained any injury, for
the two younger lions were shot before they had leapt ten paces from
the cage door. Old King was easily despatched after Joe Pentland's
tremendous blow. Besides Charlie and his mother, two men and one woman
were killed on the spot: another woman died next day from the injuries
received, and several other persons were more or less severely hurt.

Immediately after dinner I had driven out into the country to pay a
professional visit, so that I heard nothing about what had occurred
until some hours afterwards. I was informed of it, however, before I
reached the town, on my way homeward. To say that I was inexpressibly