The Newtown bee., 1880-03-03
CIRCUS ELEPHANTS.
Some Interesting Sories About Theil
 Ways.

My lamlly nave been III the circus
 business for seventy years," said Frank Melville, the dashiDg young equestrian, to a New York Sats reporter, :. and my show life. Speaking of elephants, I once rode forty miles onthe back of one, old Tippoo Saib. when was only six years old, and ever since have been around
 where they were and had opportunities
 for studying their ways. They under stand what is said to them as~well as most people do, and think about what they want to do Jus as person would
 I have seen elephants again and again,
 when they though nobody was about
 to watch them, perpetrate thefts with an ingenuity in avoiding detection, that human thief would hardly beat. It is
 no uncommon thing for an elephant to
 pull up the stake towhich he is chained,
 go to a feed bin containing oats or car-
 rots, wrench off the lock, raisexthe lid,
 eat all he wants, put down the lid again,
 return to his place, poke the stake to
 which his chain is fastened back into
 the same hole it came out of and stamp
 it down with his foot, and then when
 his keeper comes he will look as inno-
 cent as lamb; but if you'll watch the
 beast until the man begins cursing
 about the robbery of the iced bin, you'll
 observe an amused twinkle in his
 wicked, watchful little eyes that shows
 his enjoyment of the situation. The ele-
 pnant is always on the lookout to play shirt where heca get at it, and he
 will, when he thinks himself unob- served, deliberately pull every button off it, and then put it back just where you left it, and show that he finds it funny when you get mad. have seen two of them get up sham fight to at tract the attention of a third, so that fourth could get a chance to steal the feed of the third.
 Speaking of the elephants under standing of words - and, mind you, he knows their meaning as words, without any accompanying gestures, such as you have to make to the best trained horse T remember an incident with that same Tippoo Saib that rode on when I was boy. We were getting into Prairie du Chien, and he was let get into the river. Elephants are very fond of the
 water, and he was enjoying himself im- mensely, with a crowd of I suppose a thousand people looking on to see the comfort he was taking, when a fellow came along with monstrous big New foundland dog that he had most con- ceited notionof The dog had, as the man said, whipped bear, and the felt low thought could whip anything, even the elephant. and he 'sicced him at Tippoo Saib Frank Nash, who was the elephants keeper, suggested to the man that the contract was too big. and the dog seemed to have some such no- tion himself, for he just swan round Tippoo and parked at him. But tha seemed to annoy the elephant after while, and Frank just said quietly: Take him, ,Tippoo.' The next second Tippoo took him around the waist, soused him under water, and shook him there as a man would rag, then tossed him up full thirty feet in the air, caught him on his tusks, grabbed him again and flung him out on shore. Dead p Dead! Why that dog looked like 8 hand kerchief .e-s nIe . s....
 "Tippoo Saib was the grandest ele- phant I ever saw. He had tusks ten feet long, and when he was mad he was spread them apart, as he liked, in way I've never seen any other elephant do. When he got a chance to kill anything he would first knock it down, then pu the points of those tremendous tusks to- gether, and, dropping on his knees, would drive those points through what ever he was mnrdering, or mash it into the ground with them. At one little town in Town. where we wpre stopping over Sunday, we had a sort of canvas enclosure around him, where he was chained to 9 stake. @ The keeper went away to his dinner, leaving a watchman in charge of him. A young doctor came around and wanted to get in the en- closure to look at Tippoo Saib. He had been to the show the day before and seen him there. but he wanted a quiet look at him. The watchman told him the beast was dangerous and he had bet ter not go near him, but the young doc- tor allowed that he knew all about it, that elephants were docile, intelligent animals, and he was not afraid of them. As he was so confident, and seemed to know so much about elephants. the watchman went to his dinner. When he came back, Tippoo Saib had literally torn the young doctors head off his body.
 After that they cut his tusks off short, and it seemed to break his heart. They were fitted with iron sockets to screw on again, but he had no confidence in them as weapons to kill anything with; appeared to know they were no longer part of him, but just an attach ment, and he never was the same proud elephant again. His keeper used to keep his money in the hollow of the socket of one Of the tusks, a safer place than a bank as long as Tippoo lived, for even if he had lost most of his nerve when his tusks were cut off, he still was elephant enough to be likely to kill stranger whenever he got good chance; and even if he wouldn't, thieves wouldn't be likely to trust his good nature.
 But, even with the tusks off, he was regarded as dangerous. He would roll his trunk up into close roll, like coil in g up a spring, and then flip it out, and whatever he struck that way was gone. believe he could have knocked down a with one crack of that trunk. Sometimes pigs would come about him while he was eating. He appear to pay any attention until one would get close enough; then ! tap would be given by that monster trunk and the life be fairly knocked out of piggy. He would reach for the pig, make sure job of it by standing on Jim moment, then toss the shapeless carcass behind him, and go; on eating as olacidly as ever.
 :" In Somerset, Ohio, l think it was, hat came near him, and, in fear of what | le might do if he got fairly started, they killed him-shot him in the eye with a very large rifle ball, and settled him.
 Cow elephants never are vicious. | They are sometimes mischievous, but 1 lever malicious and murderous. The pulls are apt to get that way about four imes . year. especially as they grow 1 ,ld. At such times they get those sud- len fits of uncomfortable rage, and woe 1 )e tO whatever livinp thinU is in thpir |