Moving Picture News (Jan-Jun 1912)

i8 THE MOVING PICTURE NEWS could not take my dogs and pick up the trail where the lion had been during the night, and the next day trail him and kill him. On the way out I had a fight pretty near every night in the smoking room on the Doat going to Mombasa. The men asked me how many curs I thought I would have left after the first lion hunt. I just said wait and you will see. I found out the difficulty was to trail the lions and to get my hounds to run the trail and fight the lion in ambush and shoot if he pursued him. So I got some young lion cubs and ran them across the country and let the dogs on their trail so that they got to know what the lion spoor was and to scent them. In six weeks I killed about twenty-six lions, and when I came back to Nairobi some of the men would not speak to me. Some of them said I was not to go back into the country again. This made me rather angry and I went to Oustnam, the game ranger, and told him that I did not have to hunt lions in or around Nairobi or any other place in Africa, and that there were plenty of places in America where I could hunt bear. He said, you do not need to go back. Some of the farmers had a meeting and they said if you do not let this man go in we are going in ourselves, so the warden, to kill two birds with one stone, allowed me to go in. I killed fifty lions. We broke all records of the world. Altogether we killed ninety-four: sixteen in one day. This is where we killed nine in thirty-live minutes, one morning on the 25th of May. Another thing my hounds became very valuable in was not only in tracking the la-ail, running the lion and jumping him, but also as fighters. I would go and just allow my hounds to range through the reserves, nothing could escape them. Very few people who go to Africa ever see leopards. The leopards feed on the dogs coming into the towns. I was told to wait until the leopards got ahold of my hounds and see what happened. Well to make the story short we got the scent of a leopard and one of my hounds ran up to the thing and barked and the rest of the dogs followed. A big leopard jumped out and away went the whole pack. Immediately after I could hear the leopard growling and the dogs biting. To be honest with you I was afraid to go after him. Finally, however, Mr. Heller came up and we found that the hounds had killed him. On the next leopard I made up my mind to see what happened. And what happens was that the leopard lays down on his back and tries to hug the dog with his fore paws and after just simply two or three good bites it seems to almost paralyze him. The best picture I ever made of a charging lion was one that we lost. We had a wounded lion on the plains about thirty-one yards from the camera. Hemment started to photograph her. She sat up on her hind legs and he said we were not getting enough action and suggested that we throw some stones at her. The boys threw the stones and we got the action all right. She watched the stones roll past her and then she started after us. Unfortunately I had only my light gun. I shot her square in the chest but I never knew I had hit her. She swished off straight for the machine, and Black who was right behind me let go his "470" and knocked her down. The man Hemment, who took the pictures, I will say turned the crank and stuck to his camera until the lion came out of focus and dropped dead, only forty inches from the camera. These pictures should be developed within a certain length of time and we sent them to America to be done and by the time they reached New York they were spoiled, having been too long on the voyage on account of the big dock strike and suffered sweating. (Fifth Film) On my trip in Africa I never had but two dogs killed outright by a lion. I had one dog killed with almost every bone in his body broken by a blow. I was running two or three dogs but you want a large pack when they are on the run. Another time I had a dog crippled on the plain so that he died. What happens to the lion? They are the biggest scavengers in Africa. No matter how long a thing has been dead they will eat it, and anything which he touches with his claws it is alrnost sure death. Some of the dogs would have very slight scratches and we treated them carefully, but do what we could they would most always die. This is the cheetah and when we came up to them they had this cheetah standing up in the tree and you will see the dog behind her. She turns around and sees us and springs right out of the tree. We get the camera going again and the next time she jumps out you will see they kill her right in front of the camera. This is a little baby baboon which went all over Africa with me. It was a wonderful pet and would ride on the oxen. These are my hounds around camp and the fighting dog. The baboon had her particular pet that she would play with, and out of the forty dogs she knew them all, and I must say that I was the only one that this monkey would not bite. When I first got her I gave her a good whipping and after that she would bite anyone but me, and that is the reason I kept her. Now comes the two Maisie boys to tell us that they have seen a lion. It happened to us just this way on several different occasions. Now we get up the lion hunt. These horses are Abyssinian ponies. Unfortunately they die from a great many different diseases— from the tetsie fly and the reuzda pest. These are the Southern type of fox hound and the fighting dogs. They are very hard to train. Now we are putting them on the trail. Here they go. Now you see the men behind catching up with the fighting dogs, you see them passing. The lion is in the brush. Now you see the dogs fighting him. One time I came very near shooting him. With one spring he could have been right on us. This picture was taken within about fifteen yards. Now he breaks. Now they have him bayed up in another place. You will see him come right out now and make through here. All of these dogs have been scratched from one time or another and know how to take care of themselves. That light bitch over there had a bad scratch one time and she never got another. He has been shot right under the jaw now, the shot going a little too low. The dogs know that he has been shot and they give it to him pretty good and plenty. About this time he is shot again, and the dogs end him. There you see the cheetah standing right on top of the tree and you see the dogs climbing up behind the cheetah. You see them climb up higher. Off he jumps from the top of the tree to the ground and now they are killing him in front of the camera. They kill him by themselves. I always let them worry anything like a cheetah to encourage them. This is one great dog here, called Dewey, brought from Mississippi. This is my picture of Silver King, a large bear now at the Zoo. You can hardly see the railing of the boat as he is being pulled up by the derrick. I think it is the greatest picture ever taken of any animal. (Applause.) (Great applause as Mr. Rainey's picture is flashed on the screen.) , "CARMEN" AND "CRY OF THE CHILDREN" BY THANHOUSER The "Thanhouser Classic" of "Carmen" is promised the Independent theatres soon. The subject was held back to allow "Nicholas Nickleby" to jump in during the Dickens' Anniversary excitement and get the new Florida series moving. "Carmen" is in two reels, and some special advertising matter is being prepared for it. While the whole country is discussing the Lawrence strike and the removal or "kidnapping" of the strikers' children, Thanhouser announces a timely feature in "The Cry of the Children," after the poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. As a child-labor subject, the producers feel they have gotten together something that will live through the ages and work benefit through the ages. It is released Tuesday, April 30th, in two reels. It is in Thanhouser's "Can Such Things Be?" series and with a strong line of paper will help put the picture show under the New York World's definition of "civilizer." Jackson, Mich.— Col. W. S. Butterfield, of Battle Creek, owner of a string of vaudeville theatres, will erect a new playhouse at East Pearl and West Main streets. Kansas City, Mo. — The Swofford Realty Company will erect a new theatre at Thirteenth and McGee streets, at a cost of $71,000.