Audubon County journal. (Exira, Iowa) 1884-1993, 1898-02-03
TOLD BY THE CIRCUS MAN.
The Big Giraffe Catches a Cold. Which
Settles In Its Neck.

SeCCieS In lCS NECK.
"Seems to me I told YOU once, ;"
said the old circus man, "about the
giraffe having a sore throat9 1t is
serious matter for any giraffe to
have sore throat, bad for the gil
raffe and bad for the owner. When
you come to take an 10 foot giraffe
like ours, q sore throat meant large
expense and large amount of trou-
BILE, and the big fellow hadn't more n
got over this before something else
happened to him that gave us even
more trouble. He caught cold, and
the cold settled in his throat. I sup
pose he was still sensitive there, and
it gave him a stiff neck, so that he
couldn't bend his neck at all.
"You can't have any idea what
stiff neck means until you see gil
raffe afflicted in that way. We'd
had all sorts of trouble with ami
mails in one way and 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 Is feet above the
ground. That was such an amazing
thing that we knew something must
be the matter, and when the gi-
RATES. keeper come up and spoke to
him, and all he did was to bend his
nose down and look down, why, we
saw he couldn't bend his neck, and
then we knew what was the matter.
'Well, of course, the first thing
we did was to set man to march
alongside of him with a tent pole,
with crutch 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 over
hanging 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 man
ner!
He went that way for about ten
days. Ordinarily we used to put
his feed for him on top of an animal
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
18 feet from the ground, and we used
to reeve a rope through that and
make one end fast ~ the bucket
with his food or in it and
hoist it up and let eat there.
On the road we used 10 throw that
rope over the crotch of a tree at a
suitable height. For his entry into
the great tent at show time we had
to cut great slit in the canvas, but
we didn't regret that because it was
mighty impressive thing to see
him march in in that way. 1t made
him look 36 feet tall instead of Is.
Twice day man used to go up
on a ladder and put a strap around
his head, and we'd hook on fall
with a bo'sun's chair, and a man
would ride down his neck and rub
in iniment. He used to like that
very much, and it helped him great
ly, too, and one morning when the
men went out to give him the usual
rub they were delighted to see the
old chap with his head down pretty
near to the roof of the grizzly bear
cage, which stood next to him,
which showed that his neck was
coming around all right, and also
indicated that he'd take his break
fast this morning in the old way, if
you please. New York Sun.