10 JANUARY 1931, Page 17

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]

Sia,—Major Yeats-Brown is one of those sad products of this sloppy age whose sympathies have been allowed to outrun normal bounds of common sense.

He attributes people leaving the Olympia Circus before the lion and tiger acts, presumably, because they have high moral objections to man's subjugation of the great cats. What arrant hypocritical nonsense—nothing less! As one who has seen these acts time and again, as one whose visits to Regent's Park arc almost countless, as a true lover of animals I assert that Major Yeats-Brown's sentimentality is wasted. The good folk who leave I have observed with ex- treme care. They are just what they are: old women who are scared of the " dangerous lions and tigers."

The condition of the animals themselves is one which I, as one wholly unconnected with the circus world, invite anyone who will to examine. They are splendid specimens in splendid condition. And the young German who is in charge only has one concern for them, viz., the duninte leute will probe them, attempt to feed them on buns, and otherwise irritate delightful creatures of the wild who, by their contented demeanour, refute the foolish absurdities Major Yeats-Brown and his kind, in their consummate ignorance of animals,