The Express.
London, England, 1863-01-03 00:00:00

ing. The beadle at whom Punch, some 20 years
ago, used to poke so much fro—the Ausaiscel
beadle, gone melancholy mad with long solitary
confinement, and of whom, if we recollect rightly,
Mr. Leech made a sketch, showing trim as hs glared
from behind the terminal gates like the ghost of
Chimes, the poor elephant killed in IM—the
beadle, we repeat, had long since departak and
the echoes of the paanage were only now and then
disturbed by the feet of adventurous emuxbhoys.
It having been long apparent that to open a shop
in Exeter-change was like going to a rudimentary
school in bankruptcy, the demolition ofthe unlucky
avenue has followed as a matter of comae.
There are some curious memories connected
with the place. Pennant thought that the great
Lord Burleigh, Queen Elisabeth's all-powerful
minister whom Spenser, the poet, seems to
have regarded as his main enemy at court, had
a mansion where "the Change" afterwards stood,
and that he died there. The bishops
.of Exeter
possessed a palace somewhere in the immediate
neighbourhood, and hence the frequent cecurreneer
of the name of that episcopal city in the• mid-re-
gions of the Strand. The spot first became noted.
as a place of business; about the reign of William
TH.; and it must have been then that it acquired,
its title of " ExeteriChange." The row (which
stood where Wellington-street now stanch) was a.
sort of mart for millinery and upbolstegy : the
milliners occupying the lower floors and the uphol-
sterers the upper. Whether the speculation. was a.
more fortunate one in those days than in these does
not appear. The place, however, was certainly a
little more lively. Shows were to be seen there,
and in 1721 all London flocked to the Change to
look at a bed which for a time became as celebrated
as the grist bed of Ware, though its fame km not
been so permanent. The artist was a Mr. Helmond.
Cony, who valued the work of his ingenuity so.
highly that he charged half-a-crown for the privi-
lege of seeing it—not a small sum st that thee, nor
even now, when we are accustomed to enjoy for a
whole day the art and industry of all national,. a
shilling. The curtains of this wonderful bed we
woven of feathers of the mildest variety sail
beauty ; the ground representing white donna
mixed with silver, and further ornamented with
vases of flowers and fruit. A purple border, sr foot
in breadth, branched with flowers shaded with searlet,
ran along the curtains, the valance, and the UMW ;
and the bed was eighteen feet in height. It ap-
peared worthy to have been the state bed of a Sul-
tan. Rather more than half a century later,
Exeter Change saw the lying in state—not in the
showy bed of Mr. Newmond Cony, however—of a
noble criminal. In the year 1774, Lord
Baltimore was executed for the abduction of
several girls ; and his body was exhibited at the
Change previous to its interment at Epsom.
Subsequently to this the upper part of the houses
over the shops was appropriated to a wild beset
show, which held its ground for many yeses A
worse spot for such an exhibition could not have
been selected. The poor animals were cooped up
in narrow, unhealthy cages, where their sufferiags,
after the free life of the woodland and the desert,
must have been great. The spectacle of animals
which have been accustomed to elites and activity
confined within four close walls, imperfectly sup-
plied with air, missing the familiar objects el their
original localities, and pacing wearily to and fro till
the hot spirit is broken by the weight of captivity,
is always a very painful one; but at Exeter Change
it must have been especially so. In the Zoological
Gardens, at the present time, every alleviating cir-
cumetanoe is introduced ; but this was impossible
in a contracted space surrounded by the dwellings
of a populous city. The discontinuance of
the menagerie was hastened by a terrible conflict
which occurred there on the Ist of Marsh, 1826.
It was on that day that the Indian elephant
Chunee, to which reference has already been made,
was killed, as a necessary protection to the public.
Elephants are subject in the spring to a paroxysm
of fury, during which their usual docility entirely
disappears. At the time in question the fit came
upon poor Chunee with more than wonted vehe-
mence ; and medicine of extraordinary power was
administered to him, in the hope of reducing it.
All, however, was in vain ; the animal's rage in-
creased with every hour ; his lunges at the enemies
timber bars of him cage became so terrific that a
portion of the woodwork was carried away ; and
no alternative was left but to put the beast to death,
lest he should break loose, get into the Strand and
, adjoining streets, and carry havoc far and
I wide. But it was no easy matter to accom-
plish this design. Large quantities of arsenic
and of conceive sublimate were offered to the beast;
but, though they were disguised in substances to
which he was partial, he seemed to detect the de-
sign, and refused to swallow what was put before
him. The brother-in-law of Mr. Cross, the pro-
prietor, being known to be an excellent shot, was
now sent for ; and he, in conjunction with a gun-
smith's assistant, ultimately reinforced by two
soldiers, kept firing at the elephant for more than
an Lour with rifles ; the keepers at the same time
thrusting at the poor creature with pikes. The
charges of the maddened animal at the bars were
so terrific that at one time he loosened the whole
woodwork from its fastenings, and, bad it not been
strongly lashed together with ropes, he would have
burst his way through. In the very height of his
rage aLd agony, however, he exhibited a remark-
able docility to the commands of Lis keeper ;
placing himself, when ordered to do so, in a cus-
tomarypostnre, which happened to be a vourable
one for aiming at the most vital parts. Excepting when
thus influenced by the keeper, he turned his back
to the bars, so as to keep his bead out of fire. All
this while Mr. Cross VAIN frantically hurrying
from place to place, in the hope of getting the
assistance of heavier firearms and more rifles, but in
vain—an inability which to us in 1863, when rifles
and cannon are as common as blackberries memos
astonishing. On the return of the proprietor the
elephant was dead, having received between one
and two hundred bullets in his body. The second
volume of Hone's "Every Day Book" contains a
striking sketch by George Cruikshank of poor
Chunee, as he lay dead just within the shattered
bars of his den ; and a very elaborate and interest-
ing account of the catastrophe, from the pen of
Hone himself, accompanies the woodcut.
Shortly after this sickening affair, the mena-
gerie was removed, and the more modern Exeter
Change built, though not exactly on the same spot.
That in its turn has now disappeared, and the
neighbourhood will be the better for its demolition.

Importing tea without colour op the leaf pre-
vents the Chimes poring dr Inferior brown Icons as In tho
Racal kinds. liontroanb
la Ter it uncoloured. thrcrfore Merle
I alike. Sold pickers 4 LIMO roints.—indrartirentrot.l