Connecticut western news., 1895-10-17
ABOUT ELEPHANTS.
BELIEF THAT THEY ARE ENDOWED
 WITH SUPERIOR INTerttGENcE.

BELIEF THAT THEY ARE ENDOWED
 WITH SUPERIOR INTELLIGENCE. They Have Mental Qualities Not Possessed by Other Animals-Intere.tlng Stories r About Them-The First One Brought to This County.
 Elephants never go to sleep without leaving one of the herd awake to keep watch and give warning in case of in- trIision. Go into the big menagerie tent of the show any night after the ele- phants have gone to sleep, orrgo into one of the elephant cars on night run, and you will find that. no matter how quietly and stealthily you have entered, the eye of one member of the herd is upon you.
 Gonk lin believes, as do most all ele- phant keepers that the animal can un- derstalrS. what is said to it. Indeed, f trainers assert that it has more intelli- gence than any other animal, and that it is the only one that can be taught to mind by word of mouth, without other cues That it is endowed to a limited extent with reasoning powers is certain. One 'German philosopher thinks he has discovered that thismentaf development is due to the fact that in the trunk the elephant possesses prehensile organ similar to the hand of ma'L The hand, te asserts, has played a more important part in the development of the human intellect than any other agency, since it brings it's possessor into moro intimate relations with the external world than any other organ. Some menagerie man, with more practical observation than the German professor and a smaller bump of theorizing. has pointed out that the only flaw in this reasoning is that if it is correct the gorillas and chimpan- gees ought to have higher mental de velopment than man, because they have four,good hands instead of two, and any one of the four is stronger than the eight hands of four men.
 Well authenticated stories of the sagacity of elephants are 90 numerous that it is never necessary to resort to ex- aggefation to say something interesting about them. In their wild state the leader of a herd has been seen when ap- preaching swampy ground to extend one foot to try its sohdity before trusting his weight to it. When satisfied of its firnfness, he would go confidently on, and the whole herd would follow in single file, cautiously stepping in the footprints of the leader. so that when the entire herd had thus passed the ground would look as if a single animal had gone that way. The same trait of Aantion is preserved in the 'domesticated animal The action is not the result of training, but brute instinct always dis played and bearing striking resem-, blance to reason.
 When Jumbo tried to butt fast freight off from the Grand Trunk tracks in an effort to save the baby of the Bar mum herd, Tom Thumb, and lost his | life in the attempt, it was said that his action gave unmistakable evidence of l reason, though it was poor testimony to | his judgment that he so greatly under 1 estimated the force of the locomotive. | In the matter of the food value of diff ferent materials the reasoning power of \ the elephant is very faulty, however | He will eat almost anything that comes
 
 | or vest hanging on quarter pole with in reach of an elephant, the big brute | will edge over toward it and watch an l opportunity when unobserved to touch } it with his trunk. Then he will begin 1 to haul it toward him, putting in rolls | of hay and chewing them between times. As soon as the garment is at his fe.S the | elephant will put one of his ponderous l five hoofed pedals on it and begin to tear it up, rolling the pieces in his trunk and stuffing them into his mouth. | The sole of a shoe is just as good for l him to chew op, as a wisp of hay, and l his natural instinct of mischief inclipes him to prefer that which he knows is ] forbidden him.
 The first elephant brought to America for exhibition purposes was Old Bet, and it ha5 often been remarked that the | American circus was built on her shoul- ders. Different accounts fail to agree in | regard to the date of her importation, which is placed all the way from l776 | to 1883 by different writers of old time "reminiscences. Old Bet was brought over in the ship America, of which Cap tain Crowpingshield was master, and she landed, according to the harbor rec ords, in Philadelphia in April, 1798. She was but feet high, and the sum of $10, 900 was paid for her, the largest price that had been paid up to that time for any animal either here or in Eu- | rope. She was first exhibited in Phila- I delphia and astonished the public daily by drawing the corks from 80 bottles of beer and drinking the contents. On the 20th of June, 1799, she passed through New York on the way to Bos- | ton.
 Old Bet had been bought on the com- munity plan by a number of farmers of Putnam county, N. Y., at the instance of one Ludwig Bistadler, each mortgag- ing his farm and putting $500 into the venture. They exhibited her under wag
 on sheds at hotels by putting piece of side canvas up in front of the shed. The admission was 25 cents for adults and
 121a cents. or & York shilling. for chill dren. This gigantic geological institute, as the caravan was called, travelled east as far as Pawtucket, R. l. where the elephant, in spite of its docile disposi-
 tion, was shot and killed. As the "in- stitute" contained no other attractions the show closed. The same proprietors then imported second elephant, which they also called Old Bet, and they en-
 larged their exhibition by adding to the collection 8 lion and a two horse cage
 and one monkey in Q box strapped on to the hind end of the lions cage. The second Old Bet landed in 1888. Follow