STORIES about the circus are always popular, and so it turned out when I told you the tale of Massarti, the one-armed lion tamer who was mauled and killed by a lion in Bolton in 1872.

Mr Peter Nightingale, of Orwell Road, Bolton, tells me that a similar incident happened at Thomas Sharples's Star concert room in Churchgate 38 years before the Town Hall incident.

He continues: "In Robert Poole's book Popular Leisure and the music Hall in 19th century Bolton, he writes about the advent of the Star complex, starting at the Millstone in Crown Street in 1832, being arguably the first music hall in Britain as the Star Concert Room , and in 1840 transferring the name to extensive new premises in Churchgate.

"It was a three-storey development with a roof-top promenade, and stood behind the Star Inn, previously the Old Cock Inn and later, as I am sure many readers will remember, the Bush Hotel.

"In addition to this concert room, Mr Sharples ran a museum, within which was a live leopard. Not a lion but just as dangerous.

"I managed to get access to a copy of Sharples's Museum of Curiosities in Nature and Art catalogue at the Star Inn, Bolton, and among the 262 exhibits ranging from wax figures, paintings, and a piece of pressed iron from Mr Hicks's foundry, was item number 160, 'Barney the Leopard, which destroyed Matthew Ferguson, his keeper, in this museum, no other person being present at the time. It is supposed that Ferguson was teaching the animal tricks, similar to those performed by Van Amburgh and Mr Carter, and that the whip not being agreeable, the animal, when struck, turned upon him and killed him.'

"This incident took place, apparently, on February 11, 1844. One wonders what an outcry there would be if a similar incident took place nowadays."

Another letter came from Mrs Marion Flanagan, of Penarth Road, Deane, who says that her grandfather Mr William Spence, born in 1858, used to tell her a story.

"He had the front part of his foot amputated because of an accident playing piggy with his pals," she writes. "At the same time Thomas MacCarte was mauled by a lion, and they were both in the Infirmary. Thomas died; grandfather was crippled all his life, and I remember that when I was young he had a boot which resembled a horse's hoof, made of cork and leather. He was able to work in the mill as a grinder until retirement. He lived in Penarth Road until he died, at the age of 84, in February, 1943."