Many of the leaflets and handbills for touring shows in the collection promote the opportunity to view exotic and dangerous animals. For most people in Britain at this time the travelling managerie was their only chance to see live wild animals, such as this alligator being exhibited in an Alnwick inn in the mid-19th century. These displays were hugely popular and were usually promoted as an educational experiance, but the conditions for the animal would be appalling by modern standards. Exotic beasts continued to attract audiences, as seen by these images from our photographic collections, taken at the beginning of the 20th century, of dancing bears in Wooler and an elephant parading down Grey Street, Newcastle upon Tyne.