Taming Lions by Using Lightning

Louis Koemmenich, of Austria, Has Invented What He Calls the Electrical Subjugator by Which the Fiercest Wild Animal is Instantly Subdued — Dangerous.

WRITTEN FOR THE DEMOCRAT AND CHRONICLE.

It seems to me that there are interesting possibilities in the training of animals by electricity. Of course, it’s rather out of my province, but the idea of the electrical subjugator appears feasible when one knows the power of electricity and the instinctive fear that brutes have of the unknown.

And the electric method seems more humane than those I believe are in use — the whip, red-hot irons and drugs, which are likely to do permanent injury, while the physical effects of an electric shock are soon gone, only the moral ones remaining.

The subjugator referred to will do the work, but I think an apparatus could be designed that would be less dangerous to the man. I do not desire to be understood as giving the matter deep thought, but believe that if, instead of the armored back pad, the trainer used a wand with two prongs at one end, better results would follow. This wand would be connected with the supply cables and could be applied to any part of the animal’s body at will. Its operation would be precisely the same as the subjugator here illustrated, the two prongs supplying the positive and negative poles of contact found in the flattened wires. With this wand an animal could be simply shocked, stunned or killed as required.

To cure animals of jumping at men in cages, a screen of stout but flexible wire could be stretched between the trainer and the subject, the wires to be alternately positive and negative and connected through the regulator with the dynamo. After a couple of springs which would hurl him half insensible back into his corner, the taste for unexpected jumps would leave the brute.

The voltage required in training animals by electricity will naturally vary with almost every specimen. It is well known that brutes are much weaker in the structure of their tissues than are human beings, and it is upon the tissues of the body that electricity operates. A horse, many times man’s superior in muscular strength, will drop dead with an electric shock which at best would only render his master unconscious. This has often been exemplified in cities where the overhead trolley system of rapid transit obtains, as deaths of horses from stepping on charged wires or from brushing against posts supporting wires are common, while men, meeting similar accidents, are rarely seriously hurt. — Nikola Tesla, the famous inventor and electrician.

Prague, Feb. 5. — Science — scorching, searing, terrible, has come to aid the lion tamer in subduing the wild beast. The whip will in future be cast aside as unnecessary and out of date. Live wires, surcharged with electricity that baffle the lion’s fiercest assaults, and burn and maim him, or shock him half to death, have taken the place of the lash. A lion tamer of Austria, who has made a study of electricity, and whose name, Louis Koemmenich, is known far and wide throughout the continent of Europe, has been the first to call in the assistance of the lightning, to take all the fight out of fractious wild beasts.

Koemmenich has invented what he calls the electrical subjugator. This appliance enables him to enter the cage of the fiercest man-eater with absolute confidence in his own ability to defy any number of wild animals, and if they presume on the absence of the dreaded whip to make an attack upon him, to lay them groaning and baffled, and, if necessary, dead at his feet.

The electrical subjugator is a shield of electric wires that fastens on the back of the lion tamer and is connected with a dynamo by a wire coil of sufficient length to allow Koemmenich to move around the cage. The dynamo is operated by an assistant near at hand. Why it is necessary to have an assistant at the dynamo will appear presently.

Should any lion in the cage show a disposition to leap on Koemmenich he invites attack by deliberately turning his back to the lion and apparently encouraging an onslaught by removing from the enraged beast the hypnotic influence of his eyes. Deceived by this ostentatious unpreparedness, the lion crouches for a spring, and comes flying through the air, sure of his prey. It requires a quick eye on the part of the lion tamer to decide on the particular moment when it is necessary for him to bend his head and arch his back, so that the gigantic paws of the lion will strike full on the electric shield.

At the instant the two paws come in contact with the iron wires of the subjugator, there runs through them into the body of the beast a shock that can be varied at the will of the operator at the dynamo, from a voltage of 1,500 to 1,800. The operator of the dynamo, who has a full view of the scene inside the cage, can at his discretion, and if he sees that the lion is recovering from the first shock and making for the lion tamer, increase the voltage so as to shock the animal to death.

The subjugator is connected with the dynamo by an alternating current, and can be disconnected in a few seconds if the lion tamer desires. The two paws of the lion placed on the electric wires complete the circuit, so that even if the lion is poised in midair when he strikes the shield, the lightning will hit him just the same. If at the first shock the lion tamer is thrown with the beast on top of him it will be so much the worse for the beast. He will come to the ground as well as the man, and thereafter it will not be necessary to have two paws on the electrical subjugator in order for the attacking force to experience the delight of being struck by lightning. His contact with the ground will complete the circuit, and every touch of his paws, jaws or body on the wires will give him the most intense agonies.

There is danger in the use of this electrical subjugator, but lion taming is not a parlor game, and the members of the fraternity are accustomed to take desperate chances. There is a danger of the lion tamer himself being shocked by accidental contact with the live wires. To prevent this, the shield is heavily insulated with rubber, wherever it is likely to come in contact with the body of the man wearing it. The danger therefore is reduced to this: Should the lion in his frantic struggles shift the shield so as to bring it in contiguity with the body of the wearer, the latter will in his turn be shocked, but here is where the assistant’s watchful eye is valuable.

When he sees that the lion tamer is in danger of being caught in his own trap, it is the assistant’s business to turn off the current, or to reduce the voltage, so that there is no danger of his employer being electrocuted.

The device has worked like magic. One dose of lightning is sufficient for the average lion. Whips and even hot irons they have dared, but no animal has yet troubled Koemmenich after receiving into its body 1,500 volts from the electric subjugator. It seems, furthermore, that lions are blessed with memories, for whenever Koemmenich enters the cage after an encounter with a lion that has run against the electrical subjugator, he will cower away into a corner of the cage, and lick the paws that still bear the scars made by the wires.

The electrical subjugator is very simple in construction. In brief it is a flexible pad of thick rubber, attached to the shoulders, resting on the back of the trainer, and reaching to and encircling the waist. Upon this pad are affixed interlacing copper wires, slightly flattened to present a uniform surface, and connected at the point of curvature with supply cables which conduct the electricity. These supply cables extend along each side of the subjugator and enter the belt whence they reach to the regulator standing in one corner of the cage.

This regulator receives the electricity from the dynamo and only allows as much of the subtle fluid to escape along the supply cables as the trainer may wish, and this amount is judged by the age and strength of the animal. By merely moving the handle, shown in the illustration, along the indicator, a light or heavy voltage may be supplied.

Of course, the greatest care has to be exercised in the construction and handling of the apparatus. The wires on the back are bare on the top, which is the slightly flattened surface; but resting on the heavy rubber pad they are safely insulated from the man’s body. The exposed portions are for the animal.

The electricity finds its final outlet into the atmosphere or the body of an enraged animal by the familiar method of the positive and negative poles. The supply cable extending from the belt up the right side of the trainer’s back is positive; the one on the left is negative. The fluid conveyed to the flattened wires on the man’s back is imperceptible and harmless in its separate form, but combined by a short circuit its power for damage is only measured by its voltage and the strength of the object of connection.

A short circuit is made by any body which is a good conductor coming in contact with the positive and negative poles at the same time, and the resultant shock is the outgrowth of the natural repulsion of these two poles to each other. It will be readily apparent, then, that if the voltage of each pole is low, the shock will be slight; if it is high the shock will be great. And it is to control this voltage that a regulator is necessary as a sort of half-way station to the dynamo.

It has happened once, and only once, that a lion of all the many that Koemmenich has tamed with his electrical shield has refused to be subjugated, and has returned to the attack again. It seemed that this particular lion had lashed itself into a perfect frenzy of resentment against its master, for it threw itself again and again against the shield, and it was necessary for the assistant to turn on the full force of the dynamo, throwing into the lion’s body an amount of electricity which had the effect of so paralyzing the wild beast as to take every bit of fight and almost every bit of life out of him. This is the only time when Koemmenich has been in a critical position since he adopted the use of the subjugator. He regards the time as past when any lion tamer need be in fear of his life. The shield is a better weapon than a revolver. Koemmenich wears it constantly when giving performances, as it does not impede his movements and the audience is not aware of its existence. Thus prepared, he is a match for the strongest lion into whose presence he goes when giving performances. It is in taming the lion, however, that Koemmenich considers his electrical subjugator is of most value, and those who have seen it in operation when he has been attacked by a lion agree with him.