WHY THEY CONDEMNED THE CIRCUS PET TO DIE LIKE A SPY

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1022, 12 July 1930, Page 17

WHY THEY CONDEMNED THE CIRCUS PET TO DIE LIKE A SPY

THEY loved Black Diamond, the elephant. To the clowns, the acrobats and all the others of the A! G. Barnes circus, the giant pachyderm' was a pet.

And that is why they grieved recently when Black Diamond was "executed, He was condemned to die, to be shot by a firing squad like a spy or a traitor.

Black Diamond’s crime was, indeed, one of betrayal. He—or at least the firimcval spirit within him—had berayed the confidence of the circus £eople, their assurance of safety about im. He had been so kind, so gentle and possessed to a high degree that intelligence for which the elephant is noted.

But the submerged forces of the jungle got the better of Black Diamond. In one mad moment, at the height of a gay circus in the enterprising city of Corsican, Texas, the elephant rushed toward a woman spectator, picked her up with his great trunk and dashed her body to the ground, crushed and lifeless. Black Diamond, the circus pet, had turned killer. There was nothing for the circus people to do but to wipe out forever the elephant’s nine tons of fury. But even after he was condemned to die, Black Diamond created a serious problem. The problem was how to exacute him. He was sentenced to be

strangled, but tins was too difficult. Strychnine was doubtful. Electrocution was considered but was discarded as too risky. Finally it was decided to make him face a firing squad. It took five men and fifty bullets to kill Black Diamond. But if ever there was regret and sorrow over the passing of a “criminal” it was displayed by his comrades—the humans and the beasts •—of the circus. (t In that small world encompassed by “the big top” Black Diamond was a favorite. Like his mates, he was meek and placid and gentle. Caring for a circus elephant, keeping it pacified, is a big job. But Black Diamond made it easier for his keepers. He even looked after the other elephants in the show. . • Aside from that, he was clever. In the many towns of the Southwest visited by the circus he was the favorite of the children. He entertained them with many unusual tricks. He was so valuable to the circus as an attraction that he earned the name “Black Diamond.” Even during the recent tour through Oklahoma. Kansas and Texas, Black Diamond’s conduct was excellent. He was the same old reliable elephant. During the circus parade in Corsicana there was at first

nothing to cause alarm among his keepers or the trainer. He meekly and intelligently led the six other pachyderms through the streets. The sidewalks, of course, were crowded. In front of the crowd stood Mr§. Eva Donohue. The elephants were nearing her. As Black Diamond approached something turned the beast into a maniac, brushing aside the trainer as though he were but an insignificant obstacle in the jungle. He rolled up his trunk.

His keepers became startled, afraid. They knew that when an elephant rolls up its trunk it is preparing for a mad charge. They knew that in that one moment something had gone wrong inside of meek, placid old Black Diamond. For to the beast the town had disappeared, the street had vanished and he was once more in the jungle. The kindly, admiring people had blurred away and became strange beasts of the wilderness—mad, preying, savage beasts, seeking to take his life. The shouts of his keepers, the commands of his trainer, the startled screams of the populace were to him the( wild cries of fierce lions and tigers and leopards.

The Complicated Problem of Executing Black mond Was Solved by Bullets.

That must have been what happened within Black Diamond. The woman before him had become symbolic of something he had feared long, long ago, in the heart of the jungle. The eleph an t charged the woman and knocked her down. Black Diamond then picked her up, swung her aloft in his trunk arid crashed her to the ground. Even then he was not through. He demolished an automobile, stampeded through the streets until suddenly he became calm again. The jungle vanished. Black Diamond no longer was a beast of the wilderness but a gent 1 e , tamed circus elephant. This change o £ c o n d u ct, h o w e ver, came too late to save Black D i amond. The had gone mad once merely indicated he might go mad again at any time. # So he was condemned to die. The circus moved on into Bav

The Eye of an Elephant, Remarkably Small in So Large an Animal, but Capable of a Great Deal of Expression. What the Eye Lacks in Dimensions it Makes up in Kindly or Vicious Expression —According to the Temperament of the Beast. City and then into Kenedy, Texas. They tried to put off his execution as long as possible. The circus folk did not want to see Black Diamond die. When it was decided to carry through the execution, the first decision was to strangle the elephant. One plan was to hang him with a log chain from a tree. His size made the plan Nttuspayar lie.

Il Was al First />. Planned to Strangle <l]^ the '*# Elephant. With Black Diamond's Head Secured in a Loop, Three Elephants Hooked to Each End of a Chain, Would Have Engaged in a^ Tug-of-War until the Great Animal was Strangled to Death. This Method, Which had been Used on Several Occasions, was Discarded in Favor of Poison or Shooting.

impractical. Then the circus authorities hit ..upon the “tug-of-war” plan. If this had been carried out, six of Black Diamond’s heard fellows would have acted as executioners. Three elephants would be hooked to each end of a chain, as if for a tug-of-war. In the middle of the chain there would be a loop and Black Diamond’s head would be placed in the loop. When the tug-of-war started the elephant’s huge neck would be compressed until he strangled to death.

This plan was abandoned because it was feared something untoward might happen. The idea of electrocuting the beast, if carried out, would not have set a precedent. It was accomplished four years ago in Little Rock, Ark., after “Tex,” a veteran circus entertainer had gone wild, killing nine men, wounding two and destroying thousands of dollars’ worth of property before he was captured. “Tex” was sentenced to be electrocuted. The execution took place in the auditorium of the State Pair Park at Little Rock in full view of hundreds of people. It required 40,000 volts to kill the old elephant. For ten seconds, while the current was on, the city was in darkness. Such a method was discarded in the case of Black Diamond. It was decided that the most convenient way would be to force him to face a firing squad. On the way to the execution grounds three of his fellow pachyderms formed a bodyguard to keep him from tearing off into another rage as death approached. And so, at dawn, Black Diamond was chained to a tree and faced the firing squad of five men as though !*tUT* 6MI TIC*. 10-t.

he were a spy. The five men had been his friends and perhaps even the intelligent Black Diamond did not realize that they stood before him as his executioners. At any rate he was the same old meek and placid elephant. Five times the riflemen poured bullets into the great animal, while the show people, standing about, shuddered and wept. That was the end of Black Diamond. But henceforth a closer watch will be kept on the other, elephants in the circus. For gentle as an elephant may be there is always the possibility that something may go wrong within it, as in the case of Black Diamond.

The fact that Black Diamond’s case caused such a sensation is, however, a tribue to the harmlessness of the circus pachyderm. It is very seldom that they go “berserk” and then it is so unusual it becomes news. The elephant adjusts itself to civilized conditions quickly, chiefly because of its intelligence but also because of its natural gentleness. Even in the wild stages, the elephant often is inoffensive and even timid. This has been found to be so particularly in India, Burma and the Malay Peninsula, as well as in Africa. The baby elephant is both affectionate and clever. If men catch a young elephant they can train it to do things which seem almost human. The mother elephant is an even better trainer of her baby. Take the case of a baby elephant that sustained a bad injury to its head. The baby kept running away in fury when anybody tried to cure it. But the mother seized the baby with her trunk and forced it down upon its knees, holding it there while a doctor cleaned and dressed the wound. This was repeated until the little one was quite cured.

Among certain zoologists there is i difference of opinion as to the intelli gence of elephants. “Misapprehension.is prevalent as t< the intelligence of elephants, at leas' so far as the Indian species is con eerned,” says Richard Lydekker. “A 1 competent observers who have Rat much practical experience with these animals are of opinion that their intellectual faculties have been greatly overrated in popular estimation. “It is true that, when in captivity, the Indian elephant exMbits a marvelous docility and

obedience, and is also capable of learning to perform certain kinds of labor which at first sight appears to demand a considerable amount of intellectual power. There is here, however, considerable confusion between high intelligence and mere docility and capacity for receiving instruction; and there can be little doubt that the usefulness of the elephant is due to the latter rather than to the former trait. “Indeed, the size and structure of the brain is quite sufficient to prove that the intellectual capacity of elephants is far inferior to that of dogs.” The same rather iconoclastic attitude was taken by Sir Samuel Baker who, in referring to circus elephants, said: “An elephant can be educated to perform certain acts, but he would never volunteer his services. There is no elephant that I ever saw who would spontaneously interfere to save his master from drowning or from attack. An enemy might assassinate you at the feet of your favorite elephant, but he would never attempt to interfere in your defense; he would probably run away, or remain impassive, unless guided and instructed by his mahout. This is incontestable; the elephant will do nothing useful unless he is specially ordered to perform a certain work or movement.”

On the other hand, an elephant, say the zoologists, undoubtedly appears to have a very retentive memory, both for acts of kindness and of cruelty, and • this has partly contributed to its reputation for genera] intelligence. The zoologists, however, are unable ' to account for the sudden streaks of madness sometimes shown by elephants. One theory is that an animal like Black 1 Diamond, for instance, suffers from a momentary mental quirk, losing all ’ realization of its surroundings. Or perhaps it is an attack of jungle fear.