To-day they are only in China Proper in the high mountains of the extreme west along the Tibetan border and very rarely in the more isolated and well-wooded mountainous areas of south-east and south China: In the forested areas of Manchoukuo and Northern Korea, however, the black bear is still fairly common, and it is from this general region that the Chinese showman now secure the animals they lead round with them and teach to do tricks, The latter are secured when very young, being captured, usually i pairs, from their mothers, either a before they emerge from their winter lair, where they are born, or soon after they make their appearance in a hostile world. The mothers, ofa course, are "usually killed, for no mother bear will desert her cubs as Professional Entertainers long as there is any life in her.
This introduces us to an extremely interesting class of professional entertainers in China. There must be many thousands of them in the country, for during the winter months one meets them in every city throughout the northern and central provinces or travelling along the old highways from place to place. Those that take a bear with them are quite distinct from those that travel with a monkey, a sheep and a little dog. They put on altogether different performances, and it may be assumed that they emanate from different centres, The bear-show man are all well trained acrobats, jugglers, contortionists and spear throwers and catchers. Amongst other things they perform marvellous balancing feats with spinning plates and knives, the entertainments they provide the gaping country yokels or the more sophisticated city-dwellers often being good enough to put on in a first class vaudeville show.
They accompany their tricks with a line of running patter, which, if at times distinctly risque, always has the merit of being extremely funny and drawing hearty laughter from their audiences, Their dexterity is amazing, as witn ore' performer javelin at another, who it in mid-air an inch or so from his face and hurls it back again; or a lad bearing a tray full of basins of scalding tea does a double somersault to the ground from the top of three tables placed one on top of another, landing on his feet without spilling a drop of displacing tea or a single basin
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.