Novel Ideal in Artillery

1895

The Elephant Did Not Take Kindly to New Fangled Schemes.

The king of Dahomey received some Krupp cannon not long ago and conceived the idea of having them mounted on elephants' backs for use in the field.

With much difficulty this project was carried out, and at the next military review the king ordered that one of the guns be fired immediately in front of the royal position, first taking the precaution to place a couple of thousand prisoners where it was calculated the ball would strike, so as to judge of the effectiveness of the shot.

When all was ready, one of the biggest elephants was backed around and sighted. Just as the lanyard was jerked, however, the animal turned half round to reach for a peanut or something, and the shell took off the prime minister's head and knocked a hole as big as a sewer through the royal palace.

His majesty wouldn't have cared so much if the matter had ended there — as the minister wasn't very prime, and the palace needed ventilation — but it didn't.

On the contrary, the elephant, which had been stood on its head by the recoil, picked itself up in a fury and started in on the down grade ahead of its ticket.

It upset the grand stand the very first rush, slung the grand chamberlain and the past grand carver of missionaries into the next street. It then jumped into the brass band with all four feet, and if it hadn't got the big drum over its heed so that it couldn't see it would probably have cleaned out the entire congregation.

The king was not found until the next morning, and then, as he slid down out of a banana tree, he was heard to remark that there was only one thing needed to render his new artillery system an entire success — that was to get the enemy to adopt it. — Amusing Journal.



Boat House Burned

New York, 1895

The training quarters of the Ravenswood Boat club, on Newtown creek, Long Island City, was destroyed by fire Thursday evening.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, May 3, 1895, p. 5.

Rogue Elephants

1895

They Leave Devastation and Death In Their Wake When on the Rampage.

The complete history of rogue elephants would make an interesting chapter. They seem to have decided to avenge man's wrongs against their kind. Some years ago one rogue actually took possession of a stretch of country in India 40 miles wide by 100 long and in a businesslike way proceeded to demolish everything in or about it. The animal rushed into the villages, took huts upon its tusks and tore them apart or tossed them until they fell in splinters. It chased the people away or killed them whenever it could, or, standing by the wrecked houses, it ate the grains and stores.

This elephant seemed remarkably intelligent. It entertained, in particular, a grudge against the watch towers or scaffolds. Whenever this rogue saw one, be would creep slyly, spring at it, push it to the ground and kill its occupants.

A famous rogue elephant named Mandla was owned by a rich man near Jubbulpoor, in central India. Suddenly it began to develop the characteristics of a "rogue" and attacked human beings wherever seen. It killed them so cruelly that it became widely known as "the man eater." He was finally destroyed by an organized effort of English army officers.

Another famous rogue took possession of a public road and attacked every passerby. Suddenly darting from the jungle, it would rush up to an ox cart, seize the driver with its trunk and disappear. Repeated raids of this kind so terrified the people that a large tract of land was to all intents and purposes deserted, but finally an English hunter determined to rid the country of the rogue. By careful inquiry he found that the elephant always seized the driver, and if there were two carts in company it chose the driver of the last. So he arranged two ox carts, putting a dummy driver upon the second, while upon the first was a stout bamboo cage, in which the hunter was to sit, rifle in hand. When all was ready, the two ox carts started one day, followed by the hopes and best wishes of the community.

The fatal district was soon reached, and about half way down the road there came a crash, and the monstrous elephant, dark and ugly, dashed upon the party. Making directly for the last cart, with a vicious swing of its trunk it seized on the dummy man and made off, receiving as it went a shot from the cage. But the oxen, alarmed by the uproar, ran away, leaving the road and taking to the open country. They tipped the cart over, nearly killing the caged driver and the English sportsman. What the elephant thought when it tore the dummy into shreds must be imagined. Some months later, however, this rogue was driven away and caught. — C. F. Holder in St. Nicholas.

Folks, Facts and Fancies

1916

Henry Wheeler, secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture, predicts 75c. for fresh eggs in Boston this winter.

Henry Ford, the Detroit automobile manufacturer, announces that he and "his neighbors" will support President Wilson for re-election.

Horace White, for many years one of the Country's foremost journalists and an authority on financial subjects, died at his home in New York after a long illness. He was 82 years of age. Born at Colebrook, N. H., in 1834, Mr. White was educated at Beloit college and Brown University.

George W. Perkins finds that Maine progressives "almost unanimously" supported the republican ticket, and predicts that all progressives in the country will follow their example in November.

Theodore Roosevelt and William H. Taft, have accepted invitations to attend a reception in honor of Charles E. Hughes at the Union League club, Oct. 3. Elihu Root, president of the club, will preside.

The spire of the old Congregational church in Greenwich, Conn., whose peak is the highest point between New York city and New London, has been condemned. The church, it is said, is the richest in Connecticut. Its spire has been used for years as a steering guide by vessels.

With a crew of one man aboard, the 40-foot sailing launch Sir Francis, bound from San Diego, Calif., for the St. Lawrence River, cleared from Colon, Panama, for Jamaica and Key West.

"Mary" the big circus elephant which killed her trainer at Kingsport, Tennessee, Tuesday was hanged at Erwin, Tennessee. A railroad derrick car was used in the execution. The animal was forced to the tracks by other elephants, heavy chains tied around her neck and she was hoisted into the air. She was valued at $20,000 by her owners.

Ka-e-na-gi-wes, an Indian chief of Cass Lake, Minnesota said to be 128, and a heathen all that century and a quarter, won't be buried in the Spirit Land of the Chippewas' Happy Hunting Ground. He has taken the name, John Smith, and turned Christian.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 26, 1916, p. 8.

Largest of Animals

1901

Mr. Beddard in his book on whales reminds readers that although imagination is apt to picture the giant reptiles of the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods as having exceeded in size all modern animals yet in fact there is no evidence that the earth has ever contained either on the land or in the sea creatures exceeding the whale in bulk. The mammoth was larger than the elephant, but the ichthyosaurus could not match the whale for size, although with its terrible jaws it would doubtless have been the whale's master.

Charms and Witchcraft

1900

The Malay is a Firm Believer In Their Efficacy

The Malay is a firm believer in the efficacy of charms. He wears amulets, places written words of magic in houses and sports a tiger's claw as a preventive of disease. If he is specially primitive and backwoodsy, when he enters a forest he says: "Go to the right, all my enemies and assailants! May you not look upon me; let me walk alone!" To allay a storm he says: "The elephants collect, they wallow across the sea. Go to the right, go to the left, I break the tempest." When about to begin an elephant hunt, according to Thompson, he uses this charm: "The elephant trumpets, he wallows across the lake. The pot boils, the pan boils across the point. Go to the left, go to the right, spirit of grandfather (the elephant); I loose the fingers upon the bowstring."

The Malay believes in witches and witchcraft. There is the bottle imp, the Polong, which feeds on its owner's blood till the time comes for it to take possession of an enemy. Then there is a horrid thing, the Penangalan, which possesses women. Frequently it leaves its rightful abode to fly away at night to feed on blood, faking the form of the head and intestines of the person it inhabited, in which shape it wanders around.

Such beliefs may perhaps have their origin in metempsychosis, which in other ways has some foothold among the common people. For instance, elephants and tigers are believed sometimes to be human souls in disguise, and so the Malay addresses them as "grandfather" to allay their wrath and avoid direct reference to them. Crocodiles also are often regarded as sacred, and special charms are used in fishing for them. One such, given by Maxwell, is as follows: "Oh, Dangsari, lotus flower, receive what I send thee. If thou receivest it not, may thy eyes be torn out." — R. Clyde Ford in Popular Science Monthly.

Elephants' Tongues

1895

"Only a few of the many people who have thrown peanuts into the elephants' mouths," said Head Keeper Manley of the zoological gardens to a Philadelphia Record man, "have noticed that the tongue is hung at both ends. A tongue hung in the middle is a human complaint, but elephants have a monopoly on those hung at both ends. The trunk suffices to put the food just where it ought to be, and the tongue simply keeps it moving from side to side over the grinders. When a peanut gets stuck on the elephant's tongue he raises it in the middle, like a moving caterpillar, and the shell cracks against the roof of the mouth, to then disappear down a capacious throat."


Didn't Want to Sneeze

A whimsical old Englishman who died over a century ago left a will in which he stated what he wished done at his funeral. His first request was that sixty of his friends be invited, accompanied by five of the best fiddlers to be found in the town. Second, he wished no tears to be shed, but, on the other hand, insisted that the sixty friends should be "merry for two hours," on penalty of being sent away. And, finally, that "no snuff be brought upon the premises, lest I have a fit of sneezing." — Harper's Young People.


A singed cat dreads the cold.

Elephants Killed for Ivory

1896

One-fifth of the world's commerce in ivory comes to Great Britain, and it will astonish most people to learn that 15,000 elephants have to be killed every year to keep our markets supplied with the precious substance. Altogether, to keep the whole world in ivory — apart from fossil tusks — 75,000 elephants are slaughtered annually.

Africa is the great ivory country, and in the Congo basin, the best hunting ground there are supposed to be about 200,000 elephants, worth altogether about half a million sterling. The average weight of ivory obtained from a single elephant is about fifty pounds. Tusks weighing about a hundred pounds each have been procured, but this is very rare.

The most expensive tusks are those used in the manufacture of billiard balls; they cost, as a rule, $550 a hundred-weight.

Ivory dust and shavings are used by confectioners to stiffen the more expensive kinds of jellies. The scrapings are often burnt and made into a paint known as "ivory black," worth about $100 a ton.

The hardest of all ivory is that obtained from the hippopotamus. It will emit sparks like a piece of flint when struck with steel, and is principally used in making artificial teeth. — Answers.

Living in an Elephant House

1900

If the Philadelphia gentleman who in 1882 patented a house shaped like an elephant had in view the providing of a novelty, he surely succeeded.

His idea, however, was not so much to build a house after a fresh plan, as to build one on a new principle, the object being to elevate the building considerably above the ground, so as to permit a free circulation of air below the rooms, and insure an abundant supply of light. The species of animal was quite immaterial.

The legs, being hollow, were to contain flights of stairs, while the elephant's trunk, if an elephant were chosen, might be utilized as a chute to carry slops and ashes to the sewer. For picturesque purposes he advised a trough, out of which the animal might be supposed to be feeding. This was to form the opening to the sewer.

One of these novel animal houses was actually built on Coney Island, and people had an opportunity to go all over it. It proved a satisfactory speculation, and would probably have been allowed to stand until to-day if it had not been destroyed by fire. It was a conspicuous object, being so large that it could be seen from a considerable distance. — Youth's Companion.

The Heart of Jumbo the Elephant

1904

It's the Biggest Heart in the World

ITHACA, N. Y., Jan. 30. — The biggest heart in the world, that of the elephant Jumbo, is preserved in the museum of the department of neurology, vertebrate zoology and physiology of Cornell University. If the heart were not so large it would stand in a glass jar on the shelves of the museum with hundreds of those of other animals and men.

But Jumbo's heart is so big that it lies in a barrel stowed away in the cellar of the museum, glass jars not being made large enough to hold the great mass of muscle. Some time it will be dissected by a class of students and then thrown away.

Jumbo had a heart ninety-eight times as large as the average human organ. It now weighs 36½ pounds, after having soaked several years in alcohol. A human heart, which weighs a little more than a pound, soaked in alcohol for the same length of time, weighs 10 ounces. The human heart is less than six inches long. Jumbo's is 28 inches, and 24 inches wide. The ordinary heart could be contained in the main artery of Jumbo's heart. The walls of the artery are five-eighths of an inch thick, while the walls of the ventricle are three inches thick.

When Jumbo met his heroic death at St. Thomas, Ont., trying to save the baby elephant and being himself killed by a locomotive, his carcass was sent to the Ward Natural Science establishment at Rochester. The skeleton was presented and put on exhibition and the hide mounted.

Dr. Burt G. Wilder of Cornell purchased the heart of the animal to add it to his colossal collection. The brains of Jumbo were also desired, but these had been shattered in the collision. When the heart reached Ithaca it was found impractical to preserve it by the process which retains its original shape, and so the organ was put in a barrel of alcohol. It had not been removed for years until Dr. Hugh D. Reed lifted it from the barrel to show to The Herald correspondent.

—The Sunday Herald, Syracuse, New York, Jan. 31, 1904, p. 23.

Circus Elephant Heeds "Jump" Command Before Train Wreck

1905

TILLIE'S LITTLE TRICK WINS

Brookville, Ind., Aug. 17. — Circus tricks saved the life of Tillie, a trick elephant, in a freight wreck here yesterday. The Robinson circus train was standing on the Big Four tracks waiting for orders when a fast freight, running about thirty-five miles an hour, ran into it. Tillie was in one of the forward cars, and when her keeper saw the train bearing down on them he shouted:

"Jump, Tillie; jump."

The elephant, used to the command in the circus ring, jumped as she was bidden and cleared the car, receiving a slight sprain from the impact with the ground, some distance away. The trainer also jumped. The car in which they had been was wrecked. The circus employees nearly all were asleep at the time, and were thrown from their bunks to the floors of the cars, and some of them sustained serious injuries, but it is not thought that any are fatally hurt.

—The Fort Wayne Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Indiana, Aug. 17, 1905, p. 3.

Barnett Bros. Big 3-Ring Circus, 1935

Barnett Brothers Circus

With Mighty Alice, largest elephant now on tour in America, and a herd of 50 dancing horses.

— Charleston Daily Mail, Charleston, West Virginia, April 7, 1935, page 6.

Elephant to Give Birth at Brookfield Zoo

1940

Stork Hovers

Biggest blessed event of the year is scheduled to take place either in August (if a boy) or September (if a daughter) at the Brookfield zoo, near Chicago, where Nancy, a 5-ton elephant, is expected to give birth to a baby pachyderm. The bird has special interest because never before in the history of America has a baby elephant survived birth more than a few weeks. In every other case the mother has developed murderous tendencies, refused to nurse the calf and tried to crush it to death.

—The Cullman Democrat, Cullman, Alabama, August 22, 1940, page 7.

Orang-outang Starts Panic on Ship

Beast Attacks Steering Gear With Crowbar

SAN FRANCISCO, Cal., May 20. -- The swan started something when it reached forth and plucked a bag of tobacco from the unsuspecting hand of the quartermaster.

All in a cluster the elephants began to trumpet, the tigers to roar, the monkeys to chatter, the snakes to hiss, and above all there was raised the clarion call of a giant orang-outang, or whatever it is an orang-outang does when it breaks out of the reservation.

Panic in Engine Room.
Many of the animals, freshly plucked from the primeval forests of India and therefore filled with jazz and pepper, were entirely willing to join the mutiny. The giant orang-outang chose the engine room to present his act. His arrival there was a signal for a grand hegira of engineers, firemen, coal passers, water tenders and other beavers who toil in the bowels of a sea-going steamship.

Let it be explained that all this happened aboard the good ship Haleakala while on its way to San Francisco from Calcutta.

No sooner had the orang-outang established himself as king of the engine room than he began to experiment with electric switches and such. In his enthusiasm the orang-outang touched two wires at once and the same time, an act that caused what is known as a short circuit.

The odor of singed hair filled the air. To get even the orang-outang unlimbered a crowbar and began to lambast the electrical switches, a bit of sabotage that caused the ship's officers to fire forty-six shots by actual count. Their aim was perfectly punk. Not a bullet registered. In the meantime the orang-outang's monkeying with the electrical steering gear caused the Haleakala to back toward Honolulu, a port that already had been visited.

After forty-six shots had been fired at the orang-outang the animal retreated to his cage and went to sleep.

Elephant Dies Aboardship.
Other incidents combined to make the voyage interesting, too. A bull elephant, weighing three tons, died and was derricked overboard, but the carcass failed to sink in spite of huge weights attached thereto.

Oh, yes, one thing more; a sailor got too near one of the lion's cages and the king of the beasts removed the southwest part of his trousers.

--The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Illinois, May 22, 1920, page 1.