The New York herald., 1922-06-11
Wd Happened When @eEhphmt Took q Notion
The Question, What Would Happen if
an Elephant Started on a Real Ram
page9" lsMost Thoroughly Answered
at Last Biggest One In Captivity
Passes Strenuous Night

S>00OO
IF circus elephant should break loose
and go upon a rampage just what
would happen?
This speculation has, perhaps, framed
itself in the mind of every small boy who
has watched the parade, or who has stood
spellbound before the great pachyderms
in the menagerie.
There is something suggestive of mys-
terious power in the captive elephant
something almost as mysterious as the
possibilities of the exploded atom. The
small boys question is not at all silly
one.
tail, automatically and with all the proper
dressing of dramatic climaxes.
Tusko, so named, perhaps, because
of his two enormous tusks, brass tipped
and carefully ringed with bracelets half
way, broke loose the other day from his
circus moorings in small town in the
State of Washington. Tusko is a foot
taller than was the historic and beloved
Jumbo and weighs ton and half more.
His age is reckoned well along in the
hundreds-which does not at all
indicate, however, that these many I,
years have brought him discretion. SM
He was captured in India four q
years ago and brought to this coun-
trx, n ,oet 80 c1nn mn Th;. coe+
is estimated by cutting in half the
figure announced by the circus pro-
prietor. Whether or not, as the abuve
mentioned authority asserts, Tusko was
the liking of the jungle and noted from
Bombay to Lucknow as the widest man
killer who ever defied big game hunters"
there is no recorded evidence. He has
been, however, the mainstay of small
circus for these four years, and has won
sufficient fame in his world to attract
the attention of the Ringlings and all
other circus kings-without avail. He
has been kept by his original masters,
whose small enterprise has been gold
mine because of the bigness and smart
ness Oh ltS performing IuSkO.
All of which may be considered as suf-
ficient introduction to the evening of the
fifteenth of last May, with the sun having
gone down beyond the horizon of the
rather small city of Sedro woolley, in
Skagit county Washington.
Being the county seat of Skagit county
all roads for miles around led more or
less directly to Sedro Woolley, and these
roads had been we'll travelled during the
day. The whole countryside had gath
cred for the circus and was intent upon
seeing Tusko ring bells, play football, do
the latest style of dances and otherwise
cavort at the command of his trainer.
Tusko's act was due to begin at 9:15.
1t began a few moments earlier.
His trainer, good friend who had
catered to Tusko's whims for three years,
was ILL., The elephant missed him. The
substitute trainer, Henry Hendrickson.
did not quite understand Tusko. There
fore, when Hendrickson was about to
prod Tusko through the menagerie tent
door into the runway that led to the
main tent Tusko grasped him in his
trunk, threw him over the tent walls
against show wagon that stood fifty-five
feet away, and caused him to suffer the
breakage Of four ribs, his left arm, his
right ankle and other injuries.
The die thus cast Tusko turned and lum-
bered back to the main entrance. Ticket
turnstiles were in the way of his egress,
as were two ticket takers. He removed
all of these with a sweep of his trunk
The turnstiles were beyond repair when
he had passed through and the ticket TAX
ers still are in the hospital
BY this time several circus employees,
as well as quite a gathering of young
men from the audience, we're at the ele-
plants heels. There was strategic ef-
fort to turn his flank and head him off.
He turned around once, sweeping his
trunk in an extended circle AS the re-
suit thereof John Hldegard, son of one
of the Village Trustees; Emmett Swail,
whose father owned the property rented
for the day by the circus; George Crunch.
proprietor of the drug store, and Sylves-
ter Evans, a school teacher, were removed
to the hospital after emergency treat
ment.
One good turn seemed to deserve an
other, in the calculations of Tusko, and,
therefore, he continued on his way to the
adoa of tha oircua Iof WHARF ha had hie