The Press.
London, England, 1858-04-03 00:00:00

THE PRESS,

APRIL 3, 1858.

The narrator tries in vain to find out his secret,
till one day—
Not long after this, in one of the American towns, I for-
get which, passing by lljek's•shed, I heard a tremendous
row. I was about to cull Elliot, thinking it was the old
story, somebody getting butchered : but I don't know how
it was, something stopped me, and I looked cautiously in
instead, and I saw Tom Elliot walking into her with a
pitchfork—she trembling like a schoolboy with her head in
a corner—and the blood streaming from her sides. As
soon as he caught sight of me he left off and muttered
unintelligibly. I said nothing. I thought the more.

The elephant, in fact, requires the same treat-
ment as other wild beasts :
I observed this man and learned something from him.
Besides that general quickness and decision, which is
necessary with wild animals, 1 noticed that he was always
on the look out for mischief, and always punished it
before it came. Another point, he always attacked the
offending part, and so met the evil in front; for instance,
if one of his darlings curled a lip and showed a tooth, he
hit him over the mouth that moment and nowhere else ; if
one elonnAted a claw he hi-. him over the foot like light-
ning. He read the whose crew as I had learned to read
Djek, and conquered their malice by means of that mar-
vellous cowardice which they alt show if they can see no
sign of it in you.
There are no two ways with wild beasts. If there is a
single white spot in your heart—leave them ; for yourlife
will he in danger every moment. If you can despise them,
and keep the rod always in sight, they are your humble
servants; nobody more so.

The following are some traits of her " ratioci-
native " character :
It was not her public tricks that astonished me most.
The principal of all these tricks is one. An animal is
taught to lay hold of things at command and to shift them
from one place to another. You vary the thing to be laid
hold of, but the act is the same Between our-
selves, a single trick I have several times caught her doing
on her own account proved more for her intelligence than
all these. used to put her eye to a keyhole. Ay that
she would, e• . • • watch for hours to see what devil's trick
she could , • 'lt impunity--she would see me out of the
way and then go to work. Where there was no keyhole
have seen her pick the knot out of a deal•board, and squint
through the little hole she had thus made.
A dog comes next to an elephant : but he is not up to
looking through a keyhole, or a crack. He can think of
nothing better than snuffing under the door.
At one place, being under a granary, she worked a bole
in the ceiling no bigger then a thimble, and sucked down
sacksful of grain before she was found out. Talk of the
half-reasoning elephant: she seldom met a man that
could match her in reasoning—to a bad end. Her weak
points were her cruelty and cowardice, and by this latter
Tom Ell,iot and I governed her with a rod of iron—
vulgarly ealled a pitchfork. If a mouse pottered about the
floor in her stable Djek used to tremble all over, and
whine with terror till the little monster was gone. A ton
shaken by an ounce.
I have seen her start back in dismay from a small
feather floating in the air. If her heart had been as stout
as her will to do mischief was strong, mankind must have
risen to put her down.
Almost all you have ever heard about the full grown
elephant's character is a pack of falsities. They are your
servants by fear, or they are your masters. Two years ago
an elephant killed his keeper at Liverpool or Manchester
I forget which. Out came the Times: he had pronged him
six weeks before; how well I knew the old lie ; it seldom
varies a syllable. That man died not because he had
pronged the animal but because he hadn't, or not enough.
Spare the pitchfork—spoil the elephant.
We have confined our extracts to the career
of " Djek," as she is really the principal
personage of the story ; but the whole advert
tures of her keeper will probably be found in-
teresting enough to prevent a reader laying
down the book (which is not very long) till he
has finished it. At the risk, however, of being
classed with " the anonymous assassin, the
" cowardly caitiff of a scribbler who, with no
" temptation but mere envy, stabs the great
" in the dark and truckles to them face to
" face," who is alluded) to in the preface, we
must express our opinion that Mr. Reade has
somewhat fallen short of the standard by
which his previous works have caused him to
be judged. Interesting as the stories un-
doubtedly are, they are not very dissimilar to
those which may be read in " London
Labour and the London Poor," or to some of
the same kind which have occasionally ap-
peared in Household Words. Had this been
Mr. Reade's first work, it would hardly have.
made him a reputation. It will not diminish
that which he has gained, but next time he
must do more if he wishes to increase it.

The Statute•book for England, 20 and 21 Vie.,
1857. Edited by James Bigg. London :
Waterlow and Sons.

THIS volume is the first of a proposed new
series in Parliamentary literature, but we
doubt whether it will answer all its purposes.
The judge, the magistrate, and the barrister

331

must have the actual statutes before them in
extenso, else they cannot correctly reason on
the applicability of certain clauses in disputed
cases; and there are abst►acts of the important
statutes to he found in some of the existing
annual publications. A good popular index,
full and close, to all the statutes passed in a
session is undoubtedly wanted, and the
general public do not make use of the legal
publications in which such indexes are to be
found ; and even in those cases the public
would be little benefited, front the extreme
brevity of those indexes.

To give copious and intelligible epitomes of
the statutes passed in a session is what Mr.
Bigg proposes to do. The work is to be pub-
lished by subscription at one guinea per an-
num—each subscriber to receive eight hun-
dred printed piges— and it is a practical ques-
tion whether Mr. Bigg will find a reinmiera-
Live constituency to recompense him for his
trouble. We doubt whether M.P.'s or bar-
ris;ers will find this work of great use. All
professional men have a prejudice against epi-
Owes in any form, as they are not reliable,
and lay persons can easily provide themselves
with any particular statute which they may
want for reference. Country solicitors, on ac•
count of their non-residence in London, would
be most likely to find this work of use to them.
There is, also, another class of persons who
might give support to this publication. We
allude to those independent observers of legis-
lative affairs who like to have data presented
to them for their social and political specu-
lations.

The preface to this first volume contains
some interesting statements. Mr. Bigg ob-
serves :

During the twentythree years from 1835 to 1857 the
expenditure on Commissions for digesting the several
Statutes relating to Criminal and other Law has been u
follows

Charged on Civil Contingencies 1 1841 to 1845....6,238
I 1854 261
1831 to 1839 somoo
Voted in Supply, Sc l,-46 to 1648 —18,61 0
DM to 1851' —15,083

Total WAIT
But notwithstanding this expenditure of the public..coney,
not a single Consolidation Statute prepared by these
Commissions has yet been passed by Parliament.

The extent of the Statute• book is enor-
mously augmented on account of the Parlia-
ments of England, Scotland, and Ireland
having passed three different series of statutes.
Mr. Bigg presents the following curious table,
as showing the amount of pages in the Sta-
tute-book