The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-01-13
THE NATURE OF ELEPHANTS
I'LL USTRATED BY n STORY OF THE
KEEPER OF OLD ROMEO.


When an Elephant HISS n Fit on, All
Hands Look Out-Making the Beast
Beg for Mercy-Romeo's Contempt for
Hot Iron.
The killing in Columbus, Ohio, the
other day of Patsy Forepaugh, trainer
for Forepaugh and Sells Circus, by an
elephant adds another to the long list
of those who have met their death
through the malevolent Instincts Oh
these bulky brutes, who unjustly bear
a reputation for docility. You who take
your children to circus performances
with menagerie adjuncts, where these
pachyderms are fed with peanuts by
childish hands, little dream of the man
iacal tempers and instincts OF these
beasts. It's only little more than two
years ago when, at the winter quarters
of the Barnum & Bailey Circus, at
Bridgeport, Conn, an elephant eleven
feet high, weighing three and one-half
tons, valued at $4,000, and a feature OF
the show for twenty years, was put to
death after two days dosing with prus-
sic acid becausing the alarming develop
ments of his killing disposition
forbade any keeper to go near him.
In Charles Reade's novel of Jack of
Trades Jack, after various adventures,
becomes an elephant trainer and ne
gives an account of the experience OF
that line, in which the elephant Dick
plays an important part. The animal
killed several keepers, and Jack only
mastered her by using sharp pltchfork
which he plunged into her sides at the
least show of disobedience AS re-
sult of his experience, he pronounced the
full grown elephant the cunningest
most treacherous and bloodthirsty beast
that ever played the butcher among
mankind
All this brings to mind talk the
narrator once had with Stuart Craven,
the veteran elephant trainer, and the
man who acted as obstetrician for Hebe,
when, on the morning of March TO- 1880,
at Twenty third street and Ridge ave-
nue. in this city, the winter quarters of
what was then Cooper & Bailey's Great
London Circus, the first elephant born
in captivity made it's appearance. The
chat with Craven was intrinsically In
peculiar feature of exhibiting him as a
defender of the elephant while piling
proof upon proof in substantiation Of
the statement made by Charles Reade's
hero Of the malevolent qualities escribed
to the animal This is Craven's story:
'In the story of Charles Reade," said
he, there's great deal of bosh. or
Course, Their have been some bad ele-
plants but he takes one single animal
and condemns the whole family. l say
there's no occasion to have any trouble
with an elephant if he's properly hand
led, but, like Tom Elliot, the trainer in
the book, good many of the keepers
in this country have been brutes-men,
with very little intelligence, who knew
little about elephants and nothing about
anything else. Now, there was Romeo.
I believe that if I had kept him in
charge he would be alive to-day and the
best card in the country Let me tell
you about Romeo, and you'll get good
idea Of what they call bad elephant.
You see they have spells that come on
them--a kind of fever-and they become
unmanageable. If spell comes on
when they are loose, there's going to be
trouble. However, if they were handled
right, I don't think they'd, have the
spells, But about Romeo. He was one
of the eight that Barnum brought from
the island of Ceylon in 1850 He was
called Canada then. He came here with
the reputation of having killed two men
in his own country. These elephants
travelled around the country two or
three years and then four Of them were
bought by E. r. and J. Mabie, of Della
van, Wis, who sent them to their show
then travelling in the South. Two years
afterward, I was engaged in New York
to go down and take charge of them. l
went to Jackson, Miss, where the show
was and went into the tent as spec
tator. That was the first time / saw
Romeo. I walked past the elephants
and as soon as Romeo saw me he spot
ted me- He knew at once i was an ele-
phant man. He threw up his head and
smelled me all over. paid no attention
to him, but walked on. Instead of turn
ing to the next person and looking for
apples, Romeo followed me as far as
his chain would let him and kept his
head turned toward me until left the
tent I followed the show to Raymond |
the next day and there / showed the |
manager my papers. Before this l
wanted to keep incognito and take a
look at the elephants. The man who
had the animals before me was just |
such man az Charles Reade describes !
in Tom Elliot, low, drunken brute. |
When he heard that I was to replace |
him, he was terribly mad and gave up |
everything, though I wanted to keep |
him. That night he left and I took |
charge AS soon as I saw the elephants
+ saw something was wrong. The man
had gone away without tying Romeo |
securely.
"The chain around his leg was only
fastened to light stake. / saw there |
was going to be trouble. / went under
the rope and stood beside him and patti
ed him. He took me up with his trunk
and set me gently outside of the rope.
I went in again. This time he picked
me up and threw me at least twenty
feet and if he could have followed me
he surely would have killed me. Then
we began to fight him. We got the
other elephants out of the road and be-
gan to beat Romeo with clubs and poles.
He had about twenty-five feet of chain,
and, of course, we could not get very
near him. He rushed after us as far as