From the Tewkesbury Yearly Magazine. 1941July 13.
Van Amburgh, the celebrated lion tamer, exhibited his royal collection of trained animals, beneath a large pavilion, in the Swilgate Meadow, and if the little boys and girls were pleased with the antics of the learned monkey, the awkward gait of the stately giraffe, and the gambols of the stupendous elephant, the "children of larger growth" were not less astonished at the wonderful submission with which the lion, the tiger, and the leopard, obeyed at the commands of their dauntless and extraordinary master. The most memorable part of the exhibition, however, took place during the night which succeeded. About two o'clock, when those who had witnessed the public performances of the elephant were quietly reposing in their beds, this "mountain of living flesh" broke open the house in which he had been confined, and privately and steadily perambulated the streets and lanes of the town, unmindful alike of the affrighted policeman whom he occasionally encountered, and the screams of the females whom he awakened from their slumbers. After nearly demolishing one of the walls of his prison, and making his exit through two strongly barred doors, he strode from his quarters, at the Plough, up High street, and from thence into Smith's Lane, where he tore up a large vine tree, growing against the house of a respectable widow lady, whose family he greatly alarmed; and at a neighbouring cottage, he devoured a cask of wash and grains, which had been set aside for the pigs. After this, he was attracted by the pleasant smell of a large brewery, and squeezed himself between the walls of a narrow passage which led near it; he was unsuccessful in his attempt to taste the inviting beverage, but tore up some fruit trees, and frightened the inmates of the houses around. The police had by this time aroused his keepers, who led him back to his quarters, and soon afterwards marched him off to Worcester.