2-888-169 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Death of the "Lion Queen", in Wombwell's Menagerie, at Chatham [in Kent], 1850. 'It was the business of the deceased [17-year-old Ellen Blight] to go into the dens and perform with the beasts...She had only been in two or three minutes, but had gone through the main part of the performance, excepting that of making the lion sit down in a particular part of the cage, when the tiger being in her way, the deceased struck it lightly with a small whip which she carried in her hand. The beast growled, as if in anger, and, crouching close to the bottom of the den, stretched out its paw, as if at her leg or dress, causing the deceased to fall sideways against the cage; the animal at the same moment sprang at her, and, seizing her ferociously by the neck, inserted the teeth of the upper jaw in her chin, and, in closing his mouth, inflicted frightful injury in the throat with his fangs'. From "Illustrated London News", 1850.