ELEPHANTS AND MILK.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5081, 6 July 1877, Page 3

ELEPHANTS AND MILK.

A lively gallop soon brought me twelve miles on my|way easterly, over the hills, to the little village of Somerstown. Like a great castle on the Rhine with its two or three adjacent appurtenances, a large brick hotel looms up among the few small houses in its neighborhood. This seemed disproportionate, but my curiosity was particularly attracted by an immense statue of an elephant, nearly as large as life—l mean the life-size of a small elephant, of course. This remarkable resemblance to the animal was mounted on a high post before the door of the hotel, and painted over the front of the building I read, in enormous letters, “ Elephant Hotel.” It was time to breathe my horse, and the ride had given me an appetite for anything I I might find within, even if it should prove to be an elephant steak. The landlord observed that “the women folks were not at home, but he guessed he could find something.” He accordingly placed a cold turkey and a bottle of London porter on the table, and thus proved that his guess was very correct. As he sat down by my side, I asked him the meaning of all this elephantine display. “Why,” he answered, “ Hackaliah Bay ley built this house himself ?” “ Hackaliah Bayley ! Who was he ?” “ Who was Hackaliah Bayley ! Don’t you know ? He was the man who imported the first elephant into these United States—old Bet; of course you have heard of old Bet ? "No, I have not.” “What, never heard of old Bet! Well, sir, you are pretty well along in life. Where have you been all your days ?” I told him I had not spent them all in Westchester county. “ I should rather think not,” replied the landlord, “ or else you’d have heard of Hackaliah Bayley and old Bet. Right here, from this very spot, he started the first show in this country. Right round here is where they breed and winter wild animals to this day. Folks rouud here have grown rich out of the show business. There’s men iu this town that have been to Asia and Africa to get animals ; and Bayley’s big circus (lie’s old Hackaliah’s son) has grown out from the small beginning when Hackeliah imported old Bet, and that wasn’t more than 50 or 60 years ago. Yes, sir, Hackeliah began on that one she - elephant. He and the boy were all the company. They travelled nights and showed daytimes. Old Bet, she knew just how much every bridge in the country would bear before she put her foot on it. Bimeby they got a cage of monkeys and carted them along, and gradually it got up to bears, lions, tigers, camels, boaconstrictors, alligators, Tom Thumbs, hippopotamuses, and the fat woman—in fact, to where it is now. Y es, sir ;P. T. Barnum got the first rudiments of his education from Hackeliah Bayley right here in Somerstown. Elephants and milk have made this town. In fact, we all live on elephants and milk.” “ Elephants and milk 1 Good gracious 1” I exclaimed, “ what a diet !” “ Lord, sir,” retorted my landlord, “ did you think 1 meant that we crumpled elephants into milk and ale ’em ? No ; I mean to say that the elephant business and the milk business are what have built up the place. I’ve told you what elephants have done for us, and now I’ll tell you about milk. There’s fanners round here owning a hundred cows apiece. From the little depot of Purdy’s you’ll pass a mile beyond this we send 4000 gallons of milk every day to New York ; and it starts from here pure, let me tell you, for we are honest, if we were brought up in the show business. Then right in our neighborhood are two condensed milk factories, where they use as much more. There’s 8000 gallons. The farmers gets sixteen cents, for it on the spot. So you see there is a revenue of 1280dols. a day to this district. Now you’ve been telling me of the West, how they raise forty bushels of wheat to the acre, and all that. Well, what does it amount to by the time they get their returns, paying all out in railway freight? You ride along this afternoon, and if you come back this way tell me if the houses and fixings and things, especially the boys, and more particularly the gals, look any better in them fever-and-ague diggings than they do here, if wc do live on elephants and milk.— John Codman in Harper's Marjazinefor May.