From Richard Flint

Here is a portrait of Thompson scanned from my original copy of SignorSaltarino's Artisten-Lexicon (Düsseldorf, 1895), a 316 page historicaldictionary of all the great circus performers up to that time.Saltarino was the pseudonym of Hermann Waldemar Otto, editor of DerArtist, the German variety newspaper, and so this rare book is a greatsource for the many biographies it contains.I've recently seen an old bill describing "Eph.Thompson's marvellouselephants. Their first appearance in England" for the Christmas season1893 at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, (still in use but nowLondon's Royal Opera House); the show, incidentally, was quite heavyon trained animal acts including three panthers presented by what musthave been a young Dutch Ricardo, later to appear in the US.The British theatrical and variety weekly, The Era, issued an Annualfor many years that included a regular listing, or necrology, ofperformers who had died during the previous year. Thompson's deathdate is given in the 1910 edition as April 17, 1909. It has recentlybeen stated elsewhere that he died in Egypt but no source was suppliedto check the credibility of this statement. Dick Flint Baltimore