JrsE 1, 1886.] 



♦ KNOV^LEDGE ♦ 



253 



Once I had an elephant as my patient, and a touching 

 case it was; the poor brute had a huge ulcer beneath its 

 left elbow, as big as a slopbowl, and this the mahout used 

 to fill up every day with pounded l&ave* of the Croton 

 tiglium, and it was piteous to behold the agony of the 

 animal during the application of this in-itant. I consented 

 to take the poor creature in hand, provided it was sent over 

 to my house ; this was done, and the relief of cotton wool 

 soaked in weak carbolic was very striking. The next thing 

 I heard was that the mahout had removed the elephant, 

 because he could not be bothered to walk to and fro a mile 

 for his own dinner, and the next, that the poor brute liad 

 dropped dead suddenly, after its walk back. A post-mortem, 

 cari'ied out with saws, axes, and hatchets, revealed an enor- 

 mous fibrine clot in the left heart as the cause of death. I 

 was also able to certify myself that in the elephant the testes 

 were in the abdominal cavity. 



Like other animals, elephants are apt to become insane, 

 and then they either become maudlin or dangerous ; a mad 

 must not be confounded with a must elephant, an animal 

 whose sexual oropyi; has, ignorantly, not been satiated ; but 

 on the contrary, his fury has been excited by cruel ti'eat- 

 ment and the internal exhibition of highly poisonous and 

 irritant drugs. A must elephant at large is a highly 

 dangerous animal, and frequently death and destruction are 

 in its track. 



And now I will wind up theje notes with an account 

 of how an elephant paid off his mahout at Allahabad 

 during the mutiny. The man was a merciless brute, and 

 the animal long stood his cruelty, though, times without 

 number, he had had the mahout in his power ; the final 

 retribution will be undei-stood by this sketch. The day's 



PUTFORM 

 Child 



work over, the mahout dismounted at the platform of his 

 hut, on which his child was awaiting him, went in, brought 

 out a broom to sweep all around, leaving the elephant 

 standing at one wall ; several times he passed unhurt, until 

 the elephant seemed to awake to the opportunities it had 

 lost, and the nest time the mahout passed between him and 

 the wall, it moved forward a few inches, and five minutes 

 after, when I saw the dead mahout, his face was at the back 

 of his hei\d. The dead man's cliild of four (he had no wife) 

 led the elephant to its tree by the trunk which had slain her 

 father. And thereafter the executioner would have no other 

 guide. E. F. Hutchixsox. 



Theologians of a certain class explain the discrepancies 

 between ancient ideas about scientific matters and the actual 

 facts in so many diflTerent ways that they ought to cease 

 from accusing Science of contradicting the Bible until thev 

 have ceased to contradict each other. When they all agree 

 in telling Science just what it is she contradicts, it will be 

 time enough for Science to look into the matter a little. 



By Ricn.\RD A. Proctor. 



Munich has been so often and so fuUy described that I 

 do not find much to say about my visit there. Some 

 features of the place seem worth noticing, however, even 

 though I may be going over much-trodden ground. 

 * * * 



I WON-DER whether a theatre could by any possibility bo 

 managed as successfully in London as all the theatres are 

 managed here. To take the opera, which seems most com- 

 pletely to foil the efforts of managers in England, America, 

 nay, in most parts of Europe and even of (lermany. 

 For the best seats in London the foolish public consent to 

 pay a guinea, in order that singers like Patti, Nilsson, and 

 Albani may be paid two hundred pounds a night and make 

 a fortune for early squandering, after the manner of great 

 artistes. In Munich the best seats at the Hof Theatre cost 

 five shillings, though the singers are excellent — truer, as 

 artists, than many of the stai-sso admired for mere roulading 

 and high-note striking. But this is not all. In the chief 

 opera-houses in London you can never expect to be free 

 from the annoyance of some loud-speaking, unmusical neigh- 

 bours, who mar the sweetest passages with their idle chatter. 

 Once, perhaps, in ten visits you escape this annoyance, but 

 the chances are much against this. In Munich no one 

 wants to talk, they all come to listen and enjoy and let their 

 neighbours enjoy. If any one should talk, his neighbours 

 quickly assert their rights. 



* * * 



In England you never escape the annoyance caused by those 

 restless folk who must get out between eveiy act, tramplinu' 

 over ladies' dresses, upsetting opeRi -glasses, gloves, pru 

 grammes, ifec, on their way. The number of persons unable 

 apparently, through some congenital brain weakness, to sit 

 quietly for two or three hours, is so great that not once 

 in a thousand visits to opera or theatre are their idiotic 

 movements escaped. In ^Munich such movements are the 

 exception, not the rule. 



* * * 



Then, again, those foolish folk who come late are allowed 

 in England and America to spoil the pleasure of the more 

 sensible. In Munich and elsewhere on the Continent the 

 dooi-s are closed at the beginning of each part of a perform 

 anee, and those who arrive late have to wait until the pan 

 in progress when they arrive is completed. This is an aj 

 mirable arrangement, and falls as a just punishment on tin- 

 foolish and selfish. Yet another advantage is found in th.- 

 sensible hours at which the theatres open. Of course the 

 fashionable world in London and Xew York must dine lat.-. 

 and if they go to the theatre at all (which they mi^ht as 

 well omit) the theatres must open later, so that the persons 

 who form the bulk of the audiences must either lose part of 

 the performance, or be content to get home after midniglit. 

 But I fancy the theatres would not have smaller audiences, 

 and they would certainly have better ones, if they adopte 1 

 the Munich plan of beginning at seven (or even half-past 

 six for long operas) and seldom remaining open after ten. 



* * * 



Appakently the absence of an orchesti-a when plays ai f 

 acted enables the managers to secure good all-round com- 

 panies, and also prevents those long " waits " which discred;- 

 so many of our performances in England. I scarcely kno 

 which of the three advantages to consider most important : 

 but perhaps most of ns will agree that tlie avoidance of the 

 atrocious music which in nine cases out of ten fills up the 

 intervals in our theatres is even a greater gain than either 



