This straightforward single-shot actuality film was one of many made by the Warwick Trading Company in the late 1890s. Filmed at the London Zoo in Regent's Park, the year after it celebrated its 70th birthday, it depicts one of the tigers being fed a piece of meat by one of the keepers, delivering it into its cage via the hook on the end of a pole. The scale aside, the tiger's body language is all but identical to that of its smaller domestic relatives as it playfully paws at and grabs the hook - though the animal's obvious youth and vigour suggest that the keeper was wise to stay on the safer side of the bars. Michael Brooke
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