2-699-117 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

'A Wild-Beast Shop', c1873. Shop selling animals in Ratcliff Highway, London. Exotic animals for sale include a baboon, a cockatoo (perched near a stove), and an anteater. 'The wild-beast shops in this street have often been sketched by modern essayists. The yards in the neighbourhood are crammed with lions, hyenas, pelicans, tigers, and other animals in demand among the proprietors of menageries. As many as ten to fifteen lions are often in stock at one time, and sailors come here to sell their pets and barter curiosities. The ingenious way that animals are stored in these out-of-the-way places is well worth seeing'. From Old and New London, Vol. II: A Narrative of Its History, Its People, and Its Places, by Walter Thornbury. [Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co., London, Paris & New York]