English-trained animal loses his head so as to be a source of danger to
the public, as so frequently happens in India. This is partly because
they seldom travel alone. In Mr. Sanger’s menagerie, for instance, the
elephants are led when on the march by an old chestnut thoroughbred,
known as the “jumping horse,” from his feat of clearing six five-barred
gates in succession. It was when out at exercise without its usual
companion that one of these elephants bolted at Highbury last September,
and spent an afternoon in rambling about the suburbs of North London.
The damage done by the animal was greatly exaggerated, so far as the
writer could judge after a visit to the scene of its exploits. The
elephant was drinking from a water-trough just opposite Finsbury Park,
when it took fright at the sudden ringing of a tram-car bell. Pursued by
boys and policemen, it ran through the Park and down a street near the
lower entrance. Seeing a large wooden gate, like that which leads to its
own yard at Tottenham, it burst it open, and found itself in a labyrinth
of small sheds and wooden stables at the back of some shops. Threading
its way through these with wonderful agility, it ultimately arrived in a
_cul de sac_ in the yard at the back of a fishmonger’s shop. Having
thrown off its pursuers by this manœuvre, the elephant proceeded to make
itself as much at home as circumstances permitted. It first kicked into
quiet a collie dog which had resented its intrusion. Next it picked up
its kennel and pitched it over the garden wall. Then cautiously
approaching the kitchen door, it looked in to see if any provisions were
lying within reach. Meantime the fishmonger, who was taking a nap on his
sofa, was apprised that there was an elephant in his back-yard.
Trespass, whether by man or beast, is a thing no British house-holder
can put up with; so the fishmonger took down his whip and went to turn
it “off his premises.” “Jim” was at that moment looking in at the door,
and elephant and fishmonger met on the threshold. Victory lay with the
latter, but only to a limited extent. For the elephant, still bent on
finding provender, broke in the door of the stable in which the
tradesman kept his pony. The door was only six and a half feet high, and
the elephant more than eight. But it stepped in, and being familiar with
the economy of a stable, looked for the corn-bin. This found, it emptied
the whole of the contents on the floor, and soon ate up a bushel of
oats. This was not to be borne; so the plucky fishmonger determined to
“catch” the robber when it emerged from the stable. This it did rather
sooner than it had intended, as the pony, frightened at its strange
visitor, avenged the collie by kicking the elephant’s ribs. Outside, the
indignant fishmonger and his man had barred the passage by drawing a
light van across it, and, armed with whips, mounted guard on the other
side of the barricade. Jim on his part took a long drink out of a small
slate water-tank which stood near, and having refreshed the inner
elephant with food and drink, surveyed the situation at his leisure.
Seeing no other way out of the yard than that by which he had entered,
he walked up, and with his head upset the van, and brushing past the
garrison and through the crowd outside the gates, resumed his rambles in
the streets. When captured, it was long past seven o’clock, and the
animal was then well beyond the river Lea. No one was hurt by the
elephant, and beyond the wanton destruction of a small shed belonging to
a fishmonger, which it mischievously broke into pieces the size of
barrel staves, and an unfortunate rush through five garden walls in a
rather awkward place in Highbury Terrace, it did little harm to
property. Next day it was seen by the writer, apparently none the worse
for its adventures, though a violent scolding administered by the
keeper’s wife caused it obvious uneasiness. It could hardly swallow the
hay which it was eating, but taking it from its mouth, rubbed its knees
with it, turning its head away, and exhibiting signs of the utmost
penitence and confusion.
African elephants are now very scarce in this country. This is due
partly to the total blockade by the Dervish power at Khartoum of the
ancient trade-route down the river. At present there are only seven left
in Europe; of these one is in the London Zoological Gardens, one at
Manchester, and one in Wombwell’s travelling menagerie. But except to
complete the collections of learned societies, the African is far less
in demand than formerly. The elephant trade exists mainly to supply
performing animals for the circuses, and the African is not popular with
circus owners, or with their keepers or trainers. This is strange,
because it was in the Roman circus that the African elephant first
became a popular favourite in Europe. Though the first war-elephants
captured by the legions were baited to death in the arena, the later
arrivals appealed just as much to the good-nature of the _populus
Romanus_ as do their descendants to the British public. This fact
suggests one of the few humorous remarks which can safely be credited to
a Roman; and in keeping with the rarity of the event the joke was made
by almost the greatest of all Romans, Caius Octavius Augustus, Emperor,
Proconsul, Prince of the Senate, and Pontifex Maximus. One of the
humbler Quirites, anxious to present a petition, was so fortunate as to
escape the eye of the lictors and to catch that of the Emperor, who
graciously stretched out his hand for the document which he saw lurking
beneath the folds of the citizen’s gown. Flustered at the sudden chance
of royal protection, he pushed his scroll towards the outstretched hand,
then shrunk back before the thought of almost personal contact with the
human embodiment of power. “Come, man,” said Augustus, “do you think you
are giving a penny to the elephant?” “_Putasne te assem elephanto
dare?_”
To-day, though the public are ready to make the biggest elephant their
greatest favourite, as in the case of the African “Jumbo,” the keepers
and trainers have little to say in favour of his kindred. Their opinion
seems almost as unanimous as it is hostile. At the Zoo it is said that
the Africans are “stupid,” and therefore dangerous. For example,
supposing an Indian elephant to be backing towards the wall, and so in
danger of crushing its attendants, a push or a slap on its huge thigh
will instantly be understood as a hint to move forwards, or to stop. The
less careful African would probably take no notice of the warning, and
the man must either slip on one side or be crushed. The trainer alleges
that they have bad memories. This makes them uncertain performers in the
ring. They will learn a few tricks without difficulty; but when called
upon to show off in public, they are extremely likely to refuse their
parts, and either to stand still, or bolt to their stable. There seems
also to be a general feeling among circus attendants that they are
unsafe. The fine young African elephant now at the Zoological Gardens
has given far more trouble to its keepers than the two large Indian
specimens during the far longer period of their sojourn in Regent’s
Park. When quite a baby its obstinacy was as marked as their docility.
The Indian pair would walk round the grounds with their keeper between
them, the man placing a hand on each of their backs, and the two solemn
little fellows walking in step on either side. The African would not
even take the bath which most elephants look upon as one of their
greatest treats in hot weather. He roared, and kicked, and made such a
determined resistance that it was necessary to rig up a block and
tackle, and haul him into the water. When there he sulked, and seemed
prepared to undergo the fate of drowning rather than the humiliation of
obedience. The recollection that you may bring a horse to the water but
cannot make him drink, hardly expresses the feelings of his keepers when
they realized that the tackle which is sufficient to haul an elephant
into the water may be unsuited for hauling him out. Ultimately the
Chinaman’s recipe for driving a pig—“If you no can pushee, no pullee,
then try plenty stick,” was adopted with success. The African elephant’s
“uncertainty” has one redeeming feature. It may shy or jib on one day,
and get the better of its keeper for an hour or more, but he does not
necessarily therefore lose prestige in the eyes of the animal, and can
assert his authority next day unimpaired. An Indian elephant, if once
the master in a deliberate act of disobedience, loses from that moment
all respect for the man whom it has worsted. Inferiority in “parlour
tricks,” and in comparative docility, does not excuse the strange
neglect which the native species receives as a beast of burden suited
for the work of African pioneering. Dr. Sclater, writing from the
offices of the Zoological Society in Hanover Square, says that there
have been African elephants in the Gardens of the Society for nearly
twenty years, and that in his opinion they are quite as intelligent as
those of the Indian species, though perhaps not quite so docile. He
suggests that a _keddah_ of Indian elephants and their attendants should
be transported to the East African coast, and that the Indian elephants
should be used to capture and tame their African brethren. General
Gordon, shortly before the disaster at Khartoum, wrote to Dr. Sclater
advocating the employment of the elephant in Africa, and making
inquiries as to its possibility. The size which the African elephant
will attain under favourable conditions in this country is well
illustrated by the case of “Jumbo.” When this elephant came to the
Gardens he was about four feet high and weighed 700 lbs. At first he was
troublesome, but after a short time became perfectly manageable, and
grew very rapidly. This was attributed by Mr. Bartlett, in his remarks
on a paper read before the Society of Arts in 1884, by Colonel
Sanderson, to good food, and a daily bath in hot weather. In sixteen
years he grew from four feet to eleven feet in height. By that time he
was probably twenty-three years old. An elephant does not reach its
prime till thirty-five, and Jumbo increased another ton after a year at
Barnum’s; he was therefore probably not full grown at the time of his
lamented death.
The reasons for his sale were not very clearly stated at the time of his
transfer. The cause of sale, in the case of any animal, is never a point
on which the vendor is anxious to dwell. “Sold for no fault, but solely
because the owner is giving up hunting,” is the favourite formula at
Tattersall’s; and an elephant which is leaving a zoological garden to
appear in a monster circus might be supposed to be disqualified for
service in the latter, if it possessed any vice which made it an
undesirable inmate of the former. The inference is more apparent than
real; for the harder work and exercise at Barnum’s could hardly fail to
make a change in the impressionable elephant temperament. But a pleasing
mystery surrounded the “deal.” The shrewd sense of Barnum himself nursed
the growing excitement on both sides of the Atlantic with a genial
dexterity which will ever be considered a masterpiece of management
among the illustrious exhibitors of the future. The Society, on their
side, kept their own counsel, and the sale of the big elephant was
briefly alluded to in the report as “made for satisfactory reasons given
by the responsible executive.” Neither did the price received figure as
a separate item in the receipts. But as the amount credited to “Garden
sales” exceeded that of the previous year by about £1800, we may assume
that the sum paid by Mr. Barnum was well within that limit. A good
authority informs the writer that the net payment was £1000. Meantime
the “Jumbo boom” was immensely profitable to the Society’s revenue. The
fees paid for admission to the Gardens rose by £5500 in the year, an
increase which the Secretary’s report attributes to the “great interest
taken by the public in the removal of a favourite animal.” The splendid
new Reptile House, with its unrivalled facilities for observing the
habits of the snakes, lizards, and alligators, was the result of this
most welcome windfall. It was in fact the legacy of the African elephant
to the Zoo.
The facts as to Jumbo’s state of mind were afterwards clearly given by
Mr. Bartlett. During the last years of his life in the Gardens he became
at times very excited, and terrified every one who came near him except
his keeper Scott, who had extraordinary control over him. “Scott,” added
Mr. Bartlett, “was a very curious man himself, and it was with the
greatest difficulty that he could be persuaded to allow another man to
assist him in the management of the huge animal. It was feared that if
Scott fell ill, or were injured by the elephant, he would be entirely
unmanageable, for no other man dared go near him in his house, though
when out at exercise he was perfectly quiet. At night, however, he would
tear about and almost shake the house down, and became such a source of
trouble that the Council decided to part with him.”
He was quite tractable in Barnum’s show, and became the father of two
little elephants. Scott went with him, and after his death in a
collision with a locomotive, was offered the charge of a large stud of
elephants which was shown afterwards at Olympia. But his sturdy
independence rebelled against the wearing of “costume,” which Barnum’s
feeling for the proprieties of the arena enjoined. Faithful to his old
charge he mounted guard over the stuffed Jumbo, and preserved his hide
from the knives of relic-hunting visitors.
In conclusion we may contrast the knowledge and skill shown in the
management of Jumbo at a critical time, with the fate of an elephant
which exhibited much the same symptoms, in the Liverpool Zoological
Gardens, in 1848, before the present race of English elephant-keepers
had been trained to their work. This elephant, like Jumbo, was said to
be the finest in Europe. It cost £800 eleven years before its death, and
was said to be then worth £1000. It had already killed one keeper,
accidentally, as it was thought, but not long afterwards it struck down
and crushed a second. Such was the panic of the owners, that two
six-pounder cannon were bought from the Albert Docks, and set loaded
opposite to the elephant’s house, in case it should succeed in escaping.
As it remained quiet, two ounces of prussic acid and twenty-five grains
of aconite were given to it in its food. As the poison did not seem to
take effect, thirty men from the 52nd Regiment were ordered to shoot it.
The first fifteen delivered their fire, and as the creature did not fall
the next squad discharged their muskets, and the elephant sank dead with
thirty bullets in his body, together with enough poison to kill a ship’s
company.
It may fairly be claimed that we have made some progress in the
management of the elephant in England, since the days when the owner of
such a valuable animal was not only incapable of keeping it with safety,
but ignorant of the means to kill it humanely. The average duration of
their life in this country is now probably well over fifty years; and
though this does not contrast favourably with the eighty years of the
Indian studs, there is every prospect that it will increase. The office
of mahout promises to become almost as hereditary here as in India; and
while traditions of elephant management are handed down from one
generation of keepers to another, so it is noticed that the new and
acquired habits practised by the more experienced and sagacious animals
are observed and copied by the young arrivals. The elephant is being
slowly Europeanized.
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WANTED—A NEW MEAT.
THE lack of variety in those meats which, whether flesh or fowl, must
always form the ground-work and basis of an English bill-of-fare, is a
want keenly felt, but most difficult to remedy. To judge from the list
of fresh food which the improved transport of the last few years has
made available for the London dinner-table, a natural inference would be
that, so far as novelty has been studied, we had made provision, not for
man as humanized by Schools of Cookery, but for a race of fruit-eating
apes. We have a dozen new fruits, shaddocks, limes, custard-apples,
bananas, pines, Italian figs, pomegranates, lichees, ground-nuts,
gourds, water-melons, and avocado pears. But among the thousands of tons
of foreign game imported yearly, there is hardly a beast or bird which
may not be had in better quality and condition at home, except the
prairie-bird and the quail; for those canvas-backed ducks which escape
the keen search of the New York dealers and find their way across the
Atlantic, alight only on the tables of City Companies and millionaires,
like the caladrus of old, that appeared only at the deaths of kings. Yet
there are probably twenty people in this country who have eaten
canvas-backed duck for one who has ever tasted swan, or rather cygnet,
the finest water-fowl for the table alike in size and flavour, a bird
easy to rear, most prolific, rivalling even the breast of a teal,
without the fatal drawback of that excellent little bird, that no one
has ever been able to get enough of it. Even now, though so neglected by
the world, swans may be had from the Norwich Swan-Pit for £2 each. They
weigh some sixteen pounds, and with them is forwarded an ancient recipe
for cooking them—“done into rhyme by a Person of Quality.”
Another “fowl” which was once reserved for the tables of kings, and is
now hardly thought good enough for aldermen, is the peacock. What roast
swan is to roast goose, such is roast peacock to roast turkey. Many
owners of country houses who keep peacocks and let them run wild and
nest in their woods and shrubberies, take little trouble either to
fatten or cook the pea-chicks. If they did, they would perhaps take more
pains to rear these birds for the table. The meat is very white, and of
exceedingly fine and close grain, and has the true game-flavour, with
none of the stringiness of the common turkey. The American wild turkey
is, however, an even finer bird for the table than the peacock. Those
which appear in the poulterers’ shops of London generally arrive in such
bad condition from careless packing and refrigerating, that they are
inferior to the domestic bird. But when allowed to run wild and nest in
English woods, as is done on some estates, on its merits, and apart from
any tricks of cookery, it is perhaps the very best land-bird that is
available for food. The game-flavour is not too pronounced, but gives a
character to the whole which is altogether absent in the tame black
turkeys of the farmyard.
But flesh, and not fowl, is what is mainly desired to widen the
possibilities of the dinner-table. Fatted swans, or peacocks, or
American turkeys might be increased and multiplied without affording
more than an occasional relief to the monotony of the _menu_ and the
brain-searching of housekeepers. What is wanted is some new and large
animal, whose flesh has a character of its own which would readily
distinguish it from beef or mutton, and an excellence which shall make
it independent of any special treatment in cooking,—something which
shall combine the game-flavour with the substantial solidity of a leg of
mutton. An increase in the quantity of venison reared in this country
naturally suggests itself; and it is not impossible that, in neglecting
the produce of our deer-parks, we are hardly less careless than in
losing sight of the culinary possibilities of the swannery. Good
doe-venison may be bought in the neighbourhood of some large parks at a
much lower price than mutton; and the quantity of first-class venison
which finds its way to London is surprisingly little, considering the
number of parks and private herds in the country. It is objected that
deer can never pay to fat for food, because the annual growth of their
horns reduces them so much in condition as for a time to make the
venison worthless. But this applies only to the bucks; stags might be
kept like bullocks, and doe-venison might still be remunerative. As
early as 1740, an enterprising Jersey squire, of the name of Chevallier,
who had succeeded to an estate in Suffolk—whose descendants still
constantly sit in Parliament—had formed a small park for fattening deer
and sending them up to London. His accounts of the cost and profits of
the enterprise are still preserved, and he abandoned the scheme, not
from difficulties encountered in fattening or selling the deer, but
because of the uncertainty of carriage to London. Venison, even when
reared under the present unscientific method, or rather want of method,
varies greatly in quality, that from certain parks being much superior
to that grown on less suitable pasture; and it is not too much to hope
that, if bred and fattened solely for the table, venison would be in
demand as something more than an occasional luxury.
But swan, peacock, and venison are, after all, only revivals of the old
bill-of-fare which was available in the households of Old England. To
find a new meat, we must take stock of the world’s resources of animal
food, and inquire, after due survey, if there does not still exist some
neglected quadruped which will furnish what we seek. Roughly speaking,
our main supply of animal food is drawn either from the rodents, the
ruminants, or the pachyderms,—represented by the rabbit, the ox or
sheep, and the pig. To vary the supply at our disposal, we shall
probably not be able to go beyond these limits; for the general
experience of civilized man has already pronounced judgment on the
question, and science supports the verdict. It is no good to eat a wolf;
for the wolf has already got the benefit of eating the lamb, and left no
surplus for us. Of the three great tribes, the rodents may be dismissed
from our search; for those that are not already used as food are either
too small to be useful, as the lemming or the guinea-pig, or too
repulsive in appearance, like the capybara, or in habits, like the rat.
Of the pachyderms, we find only one which is domesticated for food—the
dear, familiar Berkshire or Yorkshire piggie. The larger pachyderms are
too big; the smaller, like the peccary, too savage; the wart-hog and
other African varieties too repulsive. Clearly, then, we must have
resource to the list of ruminants if we are to find one to add to the
British bill-of-fare. At first, the choice seems wide enough. It
embraces all the deer-tribe, the wild sheep and antelopes, goats and
ibexes, which are numerous; but they all possess a rank and disagreeable
flavour, which must prevent their coming into the list of first-class
food. The possibility of extending the supply of venison we have already
considered. The wild sheep would probably differ so little in flavour
from mutton as to make it hardly worth while to domesticate them, though
those of the Himalaya will breed freely in confinement. The antelopes
and wild oxen, therefore, alone remain, and it is among their number
that the animal wanted must be found, if it is to be found at all. If
the accounts of African hunters are reliable, the venison obtained from
the larger kinds of antelope found in South and Central Africa is really
excellent, that of the koodoo, the oryx, and the eland being the best.
Perhaps the highest modern authority on the subject is the opinion of
Lord Randolph Churchill. Those who read of and sympathized with his
account of his sufferings under the cuisine of the Cape steamers, must
have marked with a feeling of relief, that in his letters to the _Daily
Graphic_ he confessed to having made an excellent supper on stewed roan
antelope. His verdict on the eland has not been given, but its flesh is
said to surpass that of all other antelopes by as much as Welsh mutton
surpasses Lincolnshire “teg.” Ten educated palates have pronounced it
“peculiarly excellent, having in addition the valuable property of being
tender immediately after the animal is killed, which makes it much
appreciated in Central Africa, where the meat is usually tough and dry.”
In addition to the quality of the meat, the eland has the additional
recommendation of large size. A full-grown eland is as large as a
two-year-old shorthorn, and has far more the appearance of a high-bred
Indian bullock than of an antelope. Its horns are short and straight,
pointing backwards, and it has a dewlap like an ox. It can live on the
hardest fare, and soon grows fat on good pasture. Best of all, it
becomes quite tame, and is easily acclimatized.
When Lord Derby, the President of the Zoological Society, died in 1851,
he directed that his herd of five elands at Knowsley should be given to
the Society for use in their menagerie. They multiplied fast, and six
fawns were produced between 1851 and 1855, and it was found that at two
years old they stood thirteen hands at the shoulder. The protection
necessary was not more than that usual in fattening fine cattle, and the
Society resolved to sell their fawns for the experiment of
acclimatization in English parks. Lord Hill bought a young male and two
females for his large park at Hawkstone; but according to Whitaker’s
_Deer-Parks of England_, none of these survive. The Marquis of
Breadalbane also bought three. In 1861, twenty-one calves had been born
in the Zoological Gardens since Lord Derby’s gift ten years before, and
there is still the nucleus of a herd of their descendants at the Zoo,
though their size and stamina is diminished by inter-breeding. It does
not appear that eland breeding is now followed with much enthusiasm by
the owners of large parks and chases, partly, no doubt, because the
“shorthorn mania” was for a time such an absorbing pursuit among country
gentlemen as to leave no thoughts for any other experiments.