The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1900-06-22
ELEPHANTTORTURES
CAUSES THAT MAKE THE PONDEROUS
BRUTES MAN KILLERS.

Many of Them Who Stay Their Keep
ers Should BE Allowed to Plead
JustihabIe Homicide-Why the In
dian Elephants Hate the Mahouts.
I One Sunday afternoon, while 4 concert
was being held at the Crystal palace, an
elephant belonging to q circus which had
been performing there broke from its fas-
Jennings and killed its keeper. 1t then
brushed through various partitions of
wood and glass and appeared in the main
building, where a great number Of per-
sons were listening to the music. 1t did
not attempt to hurt any of the crowd,
though it broke off with its trunk the up
lifted arm of statue, probably under
| the idea that this represented man
about to strike. After some time it al
lowed itself to be secured by another
elephant. 1t was then decided to kill
the animal, and after Il dose of poison
had failed q London gunmaker was sent
for as executioner and shot the animal
dead.
On the following Wednesday an in
quest was held on the body of the man.
If it had been one of the trials of animals
held by jurists in the middle ages for the
in favor of the elephant could not have
been more clearly put. Mr.. Sanger, its
owner, admitted that the animal had
once before killed former keeper, and
he gave the facts which led to the death
| of the second. The facts speak for them
selves.
The first man had been discharged by
| Mr.. Sanger 10 months previously for
gross brutality to the animals. He came
back and asked to be employed again.
| This was granted, and he was taken on,
not as q keeper, but as 4 laborer. The
very first time he went into the stable the
| elephant, though it was quite dark at the
time, instantly recognized the mans voice
and at once crushed him against the stab.
| That the creature had acted only in
panic of horror at the temperance of a
! tormentor was so well established at the
previous inquest that il was retained III
| the menagerie. 1t was exceptionally
| docile and was taken through towns and
villages all over England.
| Why, then, did he kill the second keep
er? Because this man, after his Sunday
| dinner declared that he would get square
| with the elephant for striking him with
his trunk. He actually took lance, and,
| followed by another keeper, also armed
with u lance, he proceeded to prod,
j. e., pierce the chained elephant. The
| tortured creature, after backing as far
as it could, lat length rushed forward to
escape the lance, broke its chains, threw
| down the keeper and trampled on him"
| If the elephant had been a man and had
| been put on his trial afterward, would it
| be too much to anticipate that the verdict
would have been one Of justifiable homi-
| eide?
The grounds for the ill will which the
| elephant in India often harbors toward
its Indian mahout lie partly in the ami
| mails temperament, partly in the charac-
| ter of these men. As most elephants be-
have with propriety to their drivers, we
| must believe that either the greater num-
| Der Of the mahouts do their duty by the
| beasts or that the latter are exceptional
| ly forgiving. But there must be more
than mere hearsay in the general belief
that the mahouts commonly steal and ap-
| propriate very large part Of the ele-
| plants allowance Of food, that they are
in consequence often half starved and
hungry, and that the men use their steel
| hooked and spiked "ankus" in very
merciless way on animals which are often
| not in condition to do the work which is
| set them.
As the cost of an elephants keep is
| from $50 to $40 month, in proportion to
| the food given him, proportion and
| quality which is fixed in reference to the
work to be done, the margin for stealing
I is very great, being reckoned between the
minimum necessary to keep the animal
alive on low diet and that required for
keeping him In fine condition on the
march in q campaign, when he is allowed
extra rations and even a bottle of rum
| per diem. No other animal is clever
enough to know that overwork and I'M
derfeeding are probably caused by the di.
rect agency of the man who maintains
him. But It is pretty certain that the ex-
| traordinary intelligence of the elephant
does enable it to put two and two to-
gether and to conclude that the person
who gives him little food ought not to
! punish him for not being up to his
| work.
In any case the elephant bears no graft
tude to the man who if he can gives him
starvation rations and is his daily slave
driver, and as long as native usage holds
that "the driver and three generations of
his family shall live on the beast he is
paid to nourish" it must be expected that
the animal will occasionally try the ex-
ton can possibly be worse than its pres
| ent tormentor. 1t is sometimes forgotten
that an elephant may live for 30 or SO
years or even longer in the service Of
man and that in the unchanging east he
may through this long life be farmed as Il
kind Of property by the same family OF
mahouts; that the brutality of the father
if he be brute is learned by the children
and grandchildren and that if the wretch
ed elephant is in bad hands be has to put
| up with practically two of our working
lives of i'll treatment and semistarvation
The wonder is not that its temper occa-
sionally goes amiss, but that it does not
'break out" oftener.
The inference is that the natural tenn
per of the elephant is almost the best and
most easy going of that of any beast.
Az Hindoo traditions and folk lore agree
in this. The elephant is the type of bon
homie and easy geniality. 1t is this belief
which encourages its public" to take
liberties with it on which they would
venture with no other animal Whatever