The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1898-07-18
A GiRAFFE's SORE THROAT.
The Animals Peculiar Anatomy
Made the Case Serious.

Made the Case Serious.
Seems to me told you once" said
the old circus man, "about the giraffe
having sore throat? 1t is a serious
matter for any giraffe to. have a sore
throat; bad for the giraffe and bad for
the owner. When You come to take an
lS-foot giraffe like ours. a sore throat
means large expense and a large
amount of trouble; and the big fellow
hadn't more'en got over this before
something else happened to him that
give us even more trouble.He caught
cold, and the cold settled in his throat
Il suppose he was still sensitive there
and 1t give him stiff neck, so that
he couldn't bend his neck at all.
you can't have any idea of what
stiff neck means until you see giraffe
afflicted in that way; we'd had all sorts
Of trouble with animals in one way or
another, but for real bother this beat
'em all. We discovered it one day on
the road. The giraffe always ducked
his head under the branches that hung
down, sort Of like swan or goose does,
but this day, carrying his head right
up straight in the air, he brought up
against branch that was at least fif-
teen feet above the ground. That was
Such an amazing thing that we knew
something must be the matter, and
when the CRATES keeper came up and
spoke to him, and all he did was to
bend his nose down, and look down,
why, we saw he could't bend his neck,
and then we knew what was the mat
ter.
well, Of course, the first thing we
did was to set man to march along
side Of him with tent pole. with a
crotch in the end OF it, to lift the
branches for him. Most Of the time
almost all the time, in fact-we could
steer him clear Of overhanging
branches, and, Of course lots of the
way there was long stretches where
there wasn't any trees at all; and then
we'd come to places where the man
would have to lift a branch to let
the big giraffe go under; and great
pity it was, too, to see him compelled
to go about in that manner.
"IIe went that way for about ten
days. Ordinarily, we used to put his
feed for him on top of the animals
cage, so that he wouldn't have to bend
down more than eight or ten feet; but
he couldn't do that now. So we set
ring in the center pole eighteen feet
from the ground, and we used to reeve
a rope through that and make one end
fast to the bucket, with his food or
drink in it, and hoist it up and let him
eat there. On the road we used 10
throw the rope over the crotch of tree
at q suitable height For his entry in
to the great tent at show time we had
to cut a great slit in the canvas; but
we didn't regret that, because it was a
mighty impressive thing to see him
march in that way. 1t made him look
thirty-six feet tall, Instead of eighteen.
Twice day man used to go up on
ladder and put strap around his
head, and we'd hook on fall with
DO suns chair, and man would ride
down his neck and rub in liniment. He
used to like that very much, and it
helped him greatly, too and one morn
ing when the men went out to give him
The usual rub, they were delighted to
see the old chap with his head bowed
down pretty near to the roof of the
grizzly bear cage, watch stood next to
him, which showed that his neck was
coming around all right, and also indi-
Gated that he'd take his breakfast
this morning in Tho old way, If you
plpa sen