Thursday, June 07, 2007

From John Whitfield #1


COURT'S CATS, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

Here are two more photos.
One shows two of Alfred Court's beautiful cats, one is named Negus but I don't know the others name.

Posted by Buckles at 6/07/2007 05:46:00 AM

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Ringling menagerie had a dog named Negus in the late 1940's. I don't know if he was Blackie Barlow's dog or just a menagerie hanger-on.

07 June, 2007 17:59
Anonymous said...

Richard Reynolds says - - -

If these are indeed Court’s animals, they likely his two black jaugars. He called the male “Bouboule” and the female “Zougou.” On the other hand, Damoo Dhotre called them Negus and Djogo. That is likely Negus on the right. Jaguars have large, square heads in comparison to leopards. He seems to fit that description. The other cat looks smaller and is likely the female back jaguar, Djogo. One cannot be certain without seeing the whole animal.

Dhotre wrote me that male Negus was wild born and imported from Ecuador in 1936. Njogo on the other hand was born in Hanover zoo, Germany to a female spotted jaguar and male black jaguar.

The setting of this photo is perplexing. It looks like a zoo enclosure with perhaps a moat in front and a cement wall on the left side. That does not look like any of the permanent cat cages at Sarasota WQ. This makes me question whether these are the Court animals.

07 June, 2007 18:03
Anonymous said...

Court had black jaguars and snow leopards in the 1940s when they were rarely seen in zoos.

Question for Roger Smith or other experts; Didn't Mabel Stark have a black jaguar in her act at one time. I recall he had a "politically incorrect" name.

07 June, 2007 20:45
Anonymous said...

Right, Jim A: When Mabel left Barnes at the close of 1921, she went directly to RBBB quarters in Bridgeport. Among her training duties appeared the renowned black jaguar, "Nigger". (Now Al and Jesse, that was his name in those days, so you boys just sit down.) During the Garden run, in '22, Nigger refused to return to his seat, and Fred Bradna was beside himself over the 30-minute stall in the show. When she finally got him on seat, and exited for her bow, there erupted a standing ovation.

She told me down the hall came the footsteps--clip-clip-clip-clip--and she thought, "Oh,boy. This is it. They're gonna fire me." But in burst Mr. Charlie, swooping her up with a big hug and directing the photographers who were snapping away at his "great star." The next day, Mr. John sent her a giant bouquet of roses, and moved her cage into Center Ring. More on the incident with Nigger will be in the book. It was claimed at the time, he was the first black jaguar worked in this country, but his stardom was brief.

When the show came home at season's end, a sudden, raging fire involved the cat barn. The cold water that staunched the flames, barely saved the jaguar from death by burning. Mabel dried him and nursed him, but shock, smoke inhalation, and the Connecticut cold brought pneumonia, and claimed Nigger within the second day.

08 June, 2007 18:54
Anonymous said...

Richard Reynolds says - -

The fire that that led to Nigger's death was in early 1924. So the great black cat did two tours, 1922 and 1923. Atwell took a lot of photos of him with Stark. He was almost as big as some of her tigers. And he was the first black jaguar to perform in USA as far as I can determine. The only others were those of A. Court.

That 1924 fire did a heck of a lot of damage, but mostly to equipment and wagons. It burned up both the rhino and hippo cages. There's a letter about that reproduced in Chappie's Ringling history book.

Incidentally, from the historical perspective, use of the word "Nigger" was quite common at the time. Newspapers are replete with it. Circus folks used it all the time. It did not cause the sky to fall as modernists would have it. Even today it gets by when used by the rap/hip-hop music set.

08 June, 2007 23:44
Anonymous said...

In stating when the fire occurred, I had reference to Bill Johnston's article about Mabel in the March-April, 1989, WHITE TOPS, "Life of Bites...". On second look, I see that the timeline of the fire wasn't that clearly delineated. Thank you, Mr. Reynolds, for the correction.

10 June, 2007 17:09

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)