Tipu's Tiger

"As the librarian A.J. Arberry recounted in The Library of the India Office: A Historical Sketch: But we almost forget our old friend, the tiger. Who has not seen and, what is more, heard him at the old India House? And who, having suffered under his unearthly sounds, can ever dismiss him from his memory? It seems that this horrid creature—we mean, of course the figure representing it—was found among the treasures of Tippoo Sultan when he fell at the siege of Seringapatam [sic] . . . these shrieks and growls [of the victim and tiger respectively] were the constant plague of the student, busy at work in the library of the old India House, when the Leadenhall Street public, unremittingly, it appears, were bent on keeping up the performance of this barbarous machine. No doubt that a number of perverse lections have crept into the editions of our oriental works through the shock which the tiger caused to the nerves of the readers taken unawares. Luckily he is now removed from the library; but what is also lucky, a kind of fate has deprived him of his handle, and stopped up, we are happy to think, some of his internal organs; or, as an ignorant visitor would say, he is out of repair; and we do sincerely hope that he will remain so, to be seen and to be admired, if necessary, but to be heard no more."