304 WILD ANIMALS. 



Jumbo, and despite the strenuous exertions of Londoners to 

 make them alter their determination, the sale was ratified. 

 They were really afraid of him ; his strength was so pro- 

 digious, that when he became excited, the damage he inflicted 

 on the house built for his accommodation was incredible. The 

 Times, writing on the subject, said : " The door leading from the den 

 into the open air is closed with massive beams of oak, eight inches 

 square ; these are further strengthened by plates of stout sheet- 

 iron on both sides, and are so heavy that two men can scarcely 

 raise one of them from the ground ; nevertheless these beams 

 have been not merely bent, but positively broken through, both 

 iron and wood, by the muscular power of the animal." This was 

 certainly not the kind of creature to have mad and unrestrained 

 in the gardens. 



" Alice " can generally be heard long before she is seen, for 

 she is a particularly noisy animal, and also a rather unfortunate 

 one, for she has succeeded in maiming herself in an extraordinary 

 manner, once by breaking a few inches off her trunk, and on another 

 occasion by doing the same thing to her tail. She was always 

 very fidgetty and restless, and had been tethered to the corner 

 of the stall by a chain which was attached to a ring round one 

 of her fore-feet. In 1875, while the keepers were working in the 

 elephant-house, they heard "Alice" calling out suddenly, as if 

 in great pain, and on running up to her, they found she had 

 actually torn off the top of her trunk. She appears to have 

 caught it in the ring, and the pressure of her leg as she pulled 

 against it hurt her so much that it caused her to exert all her 

 force in order to withdraw it, and in the effort the end of the 

 trunk was torn completely off. She was in great pain for some 

 time afterwards, and was very uneasy, but she soon began to feed 

 again ; ultimately the end healing over, she recovered the use of 

 the organ, and now appears none the worse for her extra- 

 ordinary mishap. Her tail was injured by being wagged with 

 such force against the sharp edge of a post that a few inches were 

 knocked off it. 



The editor of the London Magazine for 1761, who appears to have 

 seen an elephant in his travels abroad, and to have been astonished 



