Evening star., 1924-04-06

| cage, and this is backed up to the
| open end of the old one, the bars are
iifted and the beast walks into his
new quarters. Nothing could be
| easier, and yet at the time of which
L am writing ] still felt twinges from
| an almost fatal accident that hap
| pened to me when | was putting an
crang-utan into a larger cage at my
animal house at Singapore
| He was just short of full grown. a
peaceable sort of fellow. His favorite
food. large onion, was in his new
home, which was pushed up against
his old cage. ] was on top Of this,
/ pulling up the bars to let him move
out. The iron sockets were rusty, and
had some trouble in baking the
bars loose. At last there was only one
left, but that was stuck fast. While
was trying To shake it free with
both hands, my left hand fortu-
hately grasping and covering the end
OF it, suddenly the thing shot up
and-my hand still covering the end
gave d terrible blow which
knocked my nose Nat against the side
of my face and sent me rolling, un-
conscious, off the cage.
= Il Z. 4
WHAT had happened was this: The
orang, having watched me pull
UP the other bars, caught the idea af
what | was trying to do. He was
impatient to get at that tempting
onion, SO he grabbed the bar and
. shot it up. If my hand had not been
over the top of it he would have killed
! me. Certainly the beast had dreadful
strength. Ny nose is still crooked as
a mark of it, 1t is just this unex-
/ pected thing that is always happen
| ing with animals.
! The finished cages arrived from the
Chinese carpenter shop on bullock
! carts. The carts were drawn by prfs-
oners of another class-shackled and
yoked together two and two. They
were really loaned by the street
! cleaning department. For one year
they were condemned to draw bull
lock cart, after which they would be
put to death. This was the punish
ment for two offenses-murder and
gang robbery.
There was much shouting and jok-
ing as the first cages were delivered,
and l found out through Hsi Chu l,
who got it from a Chinese, that the
men who drew the carts were to be
executed the next day. "They make
jokes, sir" he said, because temor-
row these men will have fine feast;
more than they can hold, sir"
The next day heard so much talk
/ of execution" that / decided to stop
| work long enough to see 1t. The
| Siamese made sort of holiday of it.
This was to be a three-day festival.
Thirty-six men in all were to be put
| to death, twelve a day. Squatting in
an open pavilion. with all their rela-
; tives and friends squatting around
them, they were given their last meal.
! All sorts of food and delicac.es were
! brought, and every one concerned had
! a grand feed" At the appointed hour
1.-The procession formed to walk through
| the town from the pavilion TO the
| execution grounds, which were about
a mile away and near the palace.
i After the execution it was difficult
| for me to get my mind down to the
recaging of the animals, but it was
finished without mishaps. The wood
en- coverings were put over the ends
] of the cages, which were loaded into
! bullock carts. There were plenty of
| condemned men left, it seemed, to do
| the street-cleaning work of Bangkok
! and the department still had men to
lend Two in front of the bullock
carts and two behind, yokea together.
! they pushed and pulled the kings
animals to the dock, where the Poo
| Ann was waiting.
| had not got within sight of her
| before / knew she had copra on
board. Copra is the meat of coconuts,
T! taken out and sun-dried. To the oc-
cidental nose it has almost the mean
est smell on earth. Blachan (rotted
/ fsh), the oriental delicacy, has the
worst, but copra is worse than the
! DURAN, which deserves its name,
| "stinking DURAN" given to it by
d. travellers from the west. All these
, things are perfumery to a native.
! There were sixty tons of copra in the
rear hatch of the Poo Ann.
| She was also carrying a consign-
ment of beef bullecks, one hundred in
, all, to the Singapore market, and the
! last of these were just being loaded
as We came up with our cages. A
sling was put about the horns of the
! bullocks and the animals were hoist
ed into the air and drepped down on
! the main deck. They were tied to the
| outside rail by rope that went
| through their rattan nose rings. My
animal cages were hoisted on board
and dashed to the hatch that was
. smidships. / saw to it that they were
firm and that they were placed SO
| that the beasts could be easily fed,
watered and cleaned. Since there were
| eighteen cages in all. this required
/ some ingenuity.
| x \
/ NTHEN the animals had been set
| W tied, the human cargo came
aboard. There must have been almost
a hundred men and women and few
| children, all Malays. going back to
! Singapore. They carried their be-
longiRgs and food, done up for the
/ most part in bundles. A few small
boxes tucked under their arms served
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