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the zoo, and I encourage my friends and family to boycott them as well. I love animals, and I want to see
them free, not held captive behind bars!
Source B: Mrs. Panton, [writing about her 1850s childhood in] Leaves from a Life, 1908
I can, however, well recollect how dismally I in particular suffered from the agonised howls
from the Zoological Gardens on Sundays, and I think these first gave me the religious doubts I
have always possessed. From my earliest days I have adored animals. I would cause Miss D---
anguish by patting every stray dog we met in our walks, and by catching up and kissing every
dirty little kitten, and the animals in the Gardens were very near and dear to my heart. Would it
be believed that in those days the wretched creatures were not fed from Saturday night until
Monday morning, by which time the neighbourhood resounded with their savage howls? The
noise I believe, and not the animals' sufferings, was the cause of this wicked cruelty being
knocked on the head, and I can well remember saving, aye and stealing, bits to give to the
creatures, when we used to go to see them on Sunday afternoons. We were always at the
Zoological Gardens; we not only had friends who gave us the green tickets, but we knew the
keepers, one of whom lived in a lodge where we sometimes had tea, which always smelt of lion,
and which now and then contained baby lions or other beasts, very small, very soft; which were
being warmed and fed in front of his fire, and which I distinctly remember being allowed to
nurse. I further recollect the feel of the rough tongues which licked our fingers, and being
solemnly warned not to allow them to draw blood, for we were given to understand that, if they
once tasted blood, the soft little kitteny things would become violent and gobble us up on the
spot. Once I was in very real peril in these same gardens; I did not know that the horrible
creature advancing towards me dragging a bit of chain and waving a stick was an escaped
ourang-outang-the one specimen, I believe, then in any civilised country - and I was about to try
and make friends when a white-faced keeper, followed by two or three other men, sprang out of
the bushes and seized the chain; afterwards I heard the nurse tell my mother of the dreadful risk I
had run, for our keeper friend had told her if they had not caught the beast when they did, he
would have torn me limb from limb. I can't say if he would; I saw an ourang-outang the other
day which did not look so very large or so very alarming, yet I distinctly remember the beast
towering above me, so I think I must have been quite small enough to demolish if he had desired
to do so. Yet another monkey obtained my undying hatred by stretching out a long lean arm, and
grabbing a beautiful long feather out of my best hat, and when 1 stamped and raved with rage the
beast ran up to the top of the cage, and tore it into the smallest of atoms. I also remember calling
in agony to the seals when they were fed to mind the bones, arousing roars of laughter, at my
expense which enraged me, for honestly I could not see what there was to laugh at, as it was an
ordinary request made to us whenever we had fish in the school-room. But much as I loved the
gardens then, I love them a thousand times more now, when the animals are decently housed and
treated, called by their names and looked after by their keepers, who really understand and care
for their charges. The only thing that remains to be done is to teach the public to behave, to cease
to prod the beasts with "swagger sticks," and to realise that monkeys don't eat sardine-tin lids or
orange peel; and that the beautiful tame squirrels that now run fearlessly about the place, will
soon lose their confidence in humanity if they are teased as they are at present, and not made
friends with as they are in the Central Park in New York. I do not recollect such tiresome teasing