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A MAD ELEPHANT. 



" HONORED SIR, I would bring to your honor's kind recol- 

 lection the caprices of a demented mad elephant, and ask for 

 your honor's instructions in the same. He is beastly bad one, 

 and notwithstanding that he has already suicided thirty-three 

 of his defunct relatives, he now is murderously intent on all 

 having a similitude to his kind, in the appearance of domestic 

 milch buffaloes ; and thereafter. He has raided all the villages 

 in the environs of No. 2 Division, and the coolies and ryots are 

 frightened for the lives and persons, although he has not yet 

 crimed the man-slaughter, but only the buffaloes and not the 

 cows. Mr. Theobald is here just now, and wants your honor's 

 geenerous advice to shoot or otherwise this furious packshide- 

 dams. The fire-lines are awaiting the monster's removal, as 

 the men wont work, in fear and trembling. A quick response 

 will ever be grateful to your most humble servant, 



"S. RAMALINGUM, 

 "Sp. Ranger, F. A., Madras University. 



"To the Assistant Forest Officer, 



" Kollegal Division, Coimbatore." 



The above is a true copy of a letter addressed 

 to the Assistant Conservator of Forests a few years 

 ago by one of the native subordinates of the Forest 

 Department, and gives in native B.A. English a 

 graphic account of the doings of a mad elephant 

 then at large in the forests of Kollegal, bordering 



