The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1904-03-02

Hindoo or an Englishman and pick
the bones little cleaner. If he could
only get rid of that appetite, or order
canned beef direct from Chicago, his
life would be q happy one.
His strength and agility are said to
be marvellous. He could carry off the
fattest woman in Charleston as easy
as man could saunter away with a
strawberry shortcake, and a profess
ional baseball twister might stand and
throw turnips at him all day long and
never come within rod of him. 1t
| is recorded that the tiger never lets 60
of his prey when he once has his claws
on it. This shows him to be a beast
with good sense. Anything or any
body that lets 60 of gooG thing when
ho has got the dead-wood on it is lack
ling in hair on the top of the head.
No one knows to what age tiger
lives. If constantly hunted by New
York sportsmen, he probably dies of
disgust at the age of one hundred
years.
The elephant is the largest animal
on legs, and if Nature had known her
business she would have given him six
instead of four, and provided him with
a dynamite torpedo at the end of his
tail. The great beast is like a red
headed boy from the country who
walks three miles in the morning to
attend a village school. Everybody
picks on him and calls him names, and
he would rather get his back up, how
ever, things have to hum. In his wild
state the elephant has nothing to do
but wander through the forest dells
and stuff his hide with the best the
lands affords. In state Of captivity
he is hauled abont by an iron hook
fastened into his ear, and made to work
twelvehours per day, union or no union.
He is also sworn at and made to step
lively, and we cannot blame him If he
now and then weeps sad tears and signs
over what good thing he has lost.
An elephant will use his trunk to lift a
stick of timber which forty tramps
would stand with their hands in pock-
cts and look at for five or six hours,
and then turn away from as too heavy
for their spinal complaints.
When not in hunger the gigantic
beast is as docile as red-headed cook
in the kitchen with only green WOOD
to get dinner with, but when driven
to anger by some one singing, I'm
the Dear Old Summer Time" into his
ear, he pulls up sewers by the roots
and tramples baby carriages into the
dust. The elephant has many enemies
besides man, and he never gets over
two hours sleep at time for thinking
of them, but he probably gets along as
well as if he had been born crow or a
buzZard. Now and then a seesaw
man going home from his club at a
late hour has bumped up against an
elephant and got away again, but, as
a rule, it is far safer to try to pick up
q mules hind foot.
It is on record that an elephant has
lived to the age of 230 years, but that
was before doctors and undertakers
became so thick. They probably jog
along to the age of about $50, and then
get tired of trying to find out what
Ben Tillman is going to do, and darts
out.
Natural history says that the whale
is neither fish nor an animal. The
only way to locate him then, is to de-
scribe him as a Chicago beef-packing
house with tail bolted on. 1t goes
without saying that he is Of the sea-.
He has been boss ever since there was
salt water to swim tn, and at this late
day it would be useless to argue him
into playing second fiddle.
The only job given the whale when
nature turned him out was to 20 swim
ming and provide himself with three
square meal per day, and he is still
working the same old racket. AS TO
the size of a fu.l-grown mammal, II
fourteen large elephants were to- sWal-
low twentyeight politicians and then
get frozen together, head-to-tall, the
bulk would be nogreater than the 1t.
As a rule, he loafs around, but when
he starts to 60 anywhere he is in hur-
ry and strikes a gait of thirty miles an
hour. If he is after the family doctor
he runs up to sixty, and dosen't lose
his breath over it.
If Mr.. Ansel or Governor Hayward
were on a raft in mid-ocean, and a
whale going at the rate of sixty miles
an hour should strike it, the friends of
those eminent and we'll known gentle
men would never hear of them more.
Left to pursue his own way and slosh
around as he pleases, the whale is not
looking for scrap and spends good
deal of his time in philosophy. Let
some Uncle Reuben from Spartanburg
sticks harpoon into him, however, or
some tramp steamship tread on his
tail, and the insulted monster starts
out in whirlwind of fury and wrecks
three or four orphan asyIums before he
cools down.
No matter if you have paid $3.50 for
a stateroom on board an ocean liner
and have seat at the captains table
and are q winner at poker in the
smoking room, whale could destroy
the steamer with one blow of his tall
and make it lonely for you he wished
to. The great mammal is supposed to
live at least five hundred years, but no
one can be sure of this. He is liable to
bang his head against rock any day,
and it is known that now and then,
when he gets too fresh, the other in
habitants of the deep gather in conven-
tion and make it SO hot for him that
he goes into q decline and his dead
body comes ashore at Georgetown.