Morning journal and courier., 1880-08-28
Mad Elephants.
The Havoc the Great Beast Causes When
 He Rebels Agninst IrIksome Captivftx.

The Havoc the Great Beast Causes When
 He Rebels Against Irl<sOme Captivity.
 A writer in the London Telegraph who has spent morning in the "Zoo" moralizes as follows on the character of the elephant ''Nor when we speak loftily of the elc- plants 'docility, should we forget the meas of this virtue may be gauged by the in dividual's capacities for the reverse. A white mouse is one of the most docile of mammals, but what would it matter if it were not? A pinch of the tail would always suffice to frighten it into abiect submission But when the sagacious elephant decides for itself, as it often does, that docility is not worth the candle, that occasional turbulence, good all-round rebellion, is wholesome for it's temper and constitution, who is going to pinch it's tail? With one swing of its trunk it lays all it's attendants fiat butts its head through an inconvenient wall, and is free. They are brave men who capture the wild elephants, but no one, however brave, tries to capture a rogue It has to be shot in its tracks, dropped standing, for it is then something more than mere wild animal. It hrs developed into creature of deliberate will, and having in its own mind weighed the pros and cons, has come to the fixed conclu- sion that captivity is mistake, and proceeds, therefore, on definite line of intelligent and malignant action. Indeed among the cpl sodes of Indian rural life there are few more appalling than such one as that of the Mad Elephant Of Mundla. 1t had been for many years docile inmate of a Government stud but one day made up it's mind to be infamous Wise men have before now told the world that it is well to be drunk once a month, and others that we should not always abstain from which is hurtful, so the elephant, determin- ing upon a bout of wrong doing, had some precedent to excuse him. The elephantine proportions of his misdemeaners, however, made his lapse from docility appalling to mere men and women whose individual wicked acts are naturally on so diminutive a scale; but, comparatively speaking, the gigantic mammal was simply on the spree Never theless it desolated villages with nearly ev- cry horrible circumstance of cruelty lately practiced by the Christians of Bulgaria. and laid it's plans with such consummate cunning that skilled police, well mounted and patrol ling the country, were baffied for many days in their pursuit of the midnight terror. It came and went with extraordinary secrecy and speed from point to point, leaving none alive upon the high roads to tell the pursuers which way it had gone and only a smashed village and trampled corpses to show where it had last appeared. It confused it's own tracks by doubling on it's pursuers and by crossing the spoor of the other elephants that accompanied them. It was not merely wild it was mad, and as cunning and cruel a mad man. But insanity itself is a tribute to the animals intelligence, for sudden down. right madness presunles strong brain power. Owls never go mad. They may go silly, or they may be born idiots but as Oliver Wen dell Holmes says, weak mind does not accu- mulate force enough to hurt itself'