The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1880-02-21
Circus Talk.
A Few Little Tales About Animals.
New York SUM-

& Bailey have one now that is going to be
terror some day if he is allowed to live. His
name is Chieftain. He will knock things
is not yet sufficiently developed devil to
tusk and kill them afterward. He is not old
enough. saw desperate fight with him
once in Jackson, Mich. He had been broken
to lie down in the ring, but suddenly one
morning, while his keeper was rehearsing
him, he made up his mind that he wouldn't
lie down. He had to be broken in at once
There was no other way. So they took him
out to the fair ground, tripped him, and
when they got him down on his belly, with
his legs spread out so that he couldn't rise,
they went to work beating him with hoop
poles and clubs and shovels, and anything
they could WELD. They wore out hundred
hoop poles on him, and were hammering on
him steady from half past in the morning
until 4 in the afternoon, Then he s'holiered,"
ana after that they had no more trouble MAX
ing him lie down. Some people may think that
the elephants hide is so thick that beating
don't hurt him much, but that is mistake
1t is an awful punishment for him. The ele-
quitoes will annoy him almost as much as they
would a naked man. And, big as he is he is
very nervous animal. He isn't afraid to fight
any big beast, but a mouse will throw him into
q fit with terror. Let a mouse get to running
about the elephant house at night, and if the
keeper does not run in, in response to their
Wild trumpetings of alarm, they will knock
the house down to get out. And when he goes
among them at such time, they will crowd
around him as close as they can stand to him,
with their trunks waving high in air. imag-
inc there must be some little beast like
mouse in their own country which gets into
their trunks when they are asleep.
1 said elephants would fight any other big
beast, and so they will. but there are some that
they don't want any trouble with and that
don't think they can get the best of. And one
of those is the black rhinoceros. saw one of
those devils set out to make mischief in
O'Brien's practicing building in Frankfort,
Pa, once. He was double horned fellow, bro
they had sawed his horns off short, which he
hadn't sense enough to remember They, hiled
hini f,--7e.sen toms weight, and ndosS.h,v srh, three
to.s, may be more Thes were gettlng tne
animals int wagon cages preparatory 10 START
ing out in TIN spring, and when they came 10
that black rhnocerous the trouble began: he
was in a pen opposite the 6oor. They backed
cage up againstthe door, rah a rope through II,
| and made it fastto a ring in mis- nose. On the
| other end of the ope twenty men hung on to
| hold him if he tied to make break. And
| the rope was lik, a hawser you'd tie up
| steamboat with. They put potatoes in line
across from the doo of his pen to the sloping
boards that Went upto the cage door, and to
tina. point coaxed hin along all right. There
| he gave a grunt, tossed his head Just once and
| broke that rope. There was yell OUTSIDE
He's oosei' and those twenty men went over
the fences like birds, ald some OF them don't
believe stopped before they got to Philadel,
pha was practicing my horses In the round
house, ust outside q wooden partition from
where h was, and whenI heard that shout
| ran up sAirs to the loft and looked out from a
door aboe, where 1 had full view OF the
whole ppceedings. When the rhinoceros
fonnd himself loose he went for his natural en-
emies,. theelephants, that were tied upon one
side. Emress, the oldest COW elephant in the
country, WIS among them. She was an Asiat-
ic elephan, with short, feeble tusks. First the
black brutewent for the four small elephants
over in th corner and tossed them about,
heayed thm up il the air and trampled on
them, damging them so that two OF them
died The; when he got them all piled up he
made rus in another direction. A tiger
cage stood l. his way and he tossed that up as
it came dow it broke and the tiger, springine
out. landed on his back. With one dash he
caught the iger against the wall and killed
him. Theme upset several other cages, bu'
| fortunately One of the animals got out, ana
as he saw nothing about them TO Kill, hi
passed on Text he charged on old Empress
He would plunge in under her belly, and thei
| pull himself out backward, showing that III
was doing hisbest to cut her open with hi
terrible horm which ho forgot had beei
sawed off. She was tied so that she couldn'
escape, and was screaming for help After
| lutte she got Lim down and was trying .
force her short tusks into him, when Cooley
the keeper. came in with short hatchet Il
his hand When she saw him she let the rhl
noceros get uT, supposing, no doubt, the keel
or would soontake care of him. But as quo
I as a flash thai devil, as soon as he was on III
feet, made rush for Cooley so suddenly tina
the man had not time to jump aside, as he wa
| caught up on bis nose, and with him there IN
beast made dive for the wall, to hx him as
| had that tiger. But by sheer good luck th
| rhinoceros's nose was pointed straight for
little door, SO instead of Cooley being mashe
| tiat against the wall he was shot through ln
| the stable as if he had been fired out OF gui
| Luckily the door was too narrow for the rhin
| ceros to get through, but he kept trying 1t vi
Ill Cooley picked himself up, ran BACK at M
| with the axe, and gave him two cuts over Il
| ewes that blinded his sight with blood. The
. | the keeper darted in behind him by anoth
, door and ran to the rhinoceros' pen. Bin
| as he was the brute followed him, either
] sound or scent so closely as almost to cate
1 him, and again plunged into the pen, whe
ne was again secured. Big as he was TIL
: black rhinoceros was as nimble as cat
j would make your hair stand up to see the po
: er and quickness and the devilishness OF Il
| beast.
sDid ever see hippopotamus hight? we
| no. but have seen one i'll tit Of rage
things that discouraged intimate acquaintan
most nightly. 1t was the one that Bale
, Nathan 4 Quick-the old 'hat-foot' combir
tion-had in 1867. They had an Arab keer
for him that he was very fond of, and I
a | Arab was struck with paralysis While I
!: man lay sick they thought they wonld see
they couldn't get the beast into the ring,
the Arab used to, and tried rehearsal OF
l. IN the morning. But the moment the hipl
o potamus was brought out of his cage a
!. missed his keeper he got wild. He STR "a
man with the side OF his head, just sort
u careless tap, and knocked him clear out OF
e ring, with both legs broken. Then he stru