THE DEATH OF JUMBO.

Kumara Times, Issue 2851, 21 November 1885, Page 3

THE DEATH OF JUMBO.

The great Jumbo, king of elephants, has come to a sad end, having been jambed (o death between an engine and a freight car. There was a tinge of romance even in this apparently prosaic taking off—or at any rate his master, the showman, the “ unequalled ” Barnurn, has invented for the poor beast a befittingclo.se to his life. Jumbo, so runs the story, was being led by his English driver from the circus tent along a side track to the menagerie car. The little baby elephant followed alone behind them. The noise of an ap preaching freight train was heard, and the driver attempted to lead Jumbo down an embankment. Jumbo, however, seeing that the baby elephant would he first struck and was childishly unconscious of its danger, rushed back, seized the baby in its trunk, and flung him beyond the reach of haim. Before he could himself escape, the locomotive had struck him, and carried him along against a freight car standing near by. Jumbo, when the wreck was cleared, bellowed with pain for a minute or two, and then rolled over on his back, turned his huge feet up to the sky, and expiied. The engineer seems to have been asleep, for he made no effort to scop the train. The taxidermist who has had charge of the work upon Jumbo’s body states that the elephant’s stomach contained many English coins—gold as well as silver ami bronze. His tusks had by the collision with the train been driven nearly through the skull. According to later accounts as to the accident, Jumbo at the last moment faced and charged the locomotive. The elephant’s skin was found to be an inch and a half thick, and it weighed 1,5371b5. The skeleton weighs 2,400’b5., and the total weight of the body was over six tons. The cost of stuffing the elephant will be 2,000 dols., besides the wages for three months of those engaged in the work.