Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1880-04-02
Tigers and Elephants,

said q writer in the Co17ahiU Magazine
q once-populous district was silent
jungle; and in 1870 a small body of Sc.
poys could with difficulty force it's way
through its forests. @For 12O miles,
says an eyewitness, "they marched
through but an extensive wood, all the
way a perfect Wilderness; sometimes 9
small village presented itself in the
midst of these jungles, with a little cul.
tivated ground around it, hardly sufR.
Gent to encamp the two battalions
These woods abound with tigers and
bears, which infested the camp every
night, but did no damage than carrying
oil child and killing some of the gen.
tlemen's baggage-buIlocks." As the
rural communities reinquished their
hamlets and drew closer together tow
ard the center of district, the wild
beasts pressed hungrily on their rear.
In vain the East India Company offered
a reward for each tigers head sufficient
to maintain a PEASANTS family in COM
fort for three months; an item of out
lay which our officers deemed so i'm
portant that when, in the financial
crisis of 1790-91, the treasury had to
suspend all payments, it made the
tiger money and diet allowance for
prisoners the sole exceptions to the
rule. In vain it spent the whole land
revenue of frontier district in rewards
for wild beasts. A belt of jungle filed
with ferocious animals lay for years
around the cultivated land. The Off
cial records frequently speak of the
mailbag being carried off by tigers,
and the custom of the mail
runners carrying jangling rings or
bells to scare away the wild
beasts survived to our own day. Lord
CORVALLIS, in 1889, had to sanction a
grant of public money to free the mill
tary road from the depredations of
these animals. The ravages of the wild
elephants were on larger scale, and
their determination formed one of the
most important duties Of the British
officers after the country passed under
our rule. Tigers, leopards, and wolves
slew their thousands of men and their
hundreds of thousands Of cattle. But
the herd of wild elephants was abso-
lutely resistless, lifting off roofs, push
ing down walls. trampling village I'M.
der foot as if it was city of sand which
q child had built upon the shore. In
two parishes alone, during the last few
years OF the native administration, fifty
six hamlets with their surrounding lands
!" had all been destroyed and gone to
Jungle, caused by the depredations of
wild elephants" Another official re-
turn states that forty market villages
throughout Birbhum district had been
deserted from the same cause. Large
reductions had to be made in the land
tax, and the East India Company Dor
rowed tame elephants from the native
Viceroyis stud in order to catch the wild
ones. I had ocular proof on my Jour.
ney,' writes an English officer in i79l,
of their ravages. The poor timid ma
tive ties his cot to tree, to which he
retires when tho elephants approach,
and silently reviews the destruction Of
his cottage and the whole profits Of his
labor. sOne night writes an English
surveyor in 1910. although Il had q
guard, the men Of the village close 70
my tent retired to the trees, and the
women hid themselves among the cat
lie, leaving their huts . prey to the ele-
plants, who know very well where to-
look for grain. Two nights before
some Of them had unroofed hut IN the
village, and had eaten up al the grain
which : poor family possessed. : Most
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