706 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [April 2. 1900. 
a kind of property by the same family of ma- 
houts ; that the brutality of the father, if he be 
a brute, is learnt by the children and grand- 
children, and that, if the wretched elephant is 
in bad Hands, he has to put up with practically 
two of our working lives of ill-treatment and semi- 
starvation. The wonder is, not that its temper 
occasionally goes amiss, but that it does not 
"break out" oftener. The inference is that the 
natural temper of the elephant is almost the best 
and most easy going ol that of any beast. All 
Hindo® traditions and folk-lore agree in this. The 
elei)hant is the type of bonhomie and easy geni- 
ality. Is is this belief whicli encourages its '■ pub- 
lic " to take liberties with it on which they 
would venture with no other animal whatever. 
Perhaps the gentlest of our giant domestic ani- 
mals are the big shire horses. But no one would 
expect them to lie down on being pressed with a 
sharp-pointed goad, or to do work on insuiii- 
cienc food, when ridden and managed by a cre- 
ature no longer in pioportion to their bulk than 
a monkey, armed with a sharp and painful 
weapon. Yet the sh.re horse has no memory for 
injuries and is at least as docile in his way as 
the elephant. 
There is no doubt that the 
POWER OF MEMOllY 
which the elephant possesses beyond all other 
beascp, and of reasoning, in which it is supreme, 
makes its ill-treatment especially dangerous, a 
danger which is only mitigated, but not removed, 
by its good nature and extreme patience. Though 
no one imagines that our English elephant herd 
is half-starved by the white attendants there is 
no doubt that these men do not infrequently 
incur the ill-will of their charges. I5y long fami- 
liarity and constant control the men aradually 
forget that the creature has a will of its own, 
and that it has both memory and a power of 
resentment. They also seeru to lose all consci- 
ousness of the enormous strength of the beast they 
manage. Many of the men come to regard them as 
being as much" under control as a traction engine, 
which only needs the turning on or off of taps 
to make it advance or recede. As a rule, 
their only instrument of discipline is a whip ; 
but with" this and plenty of shouting and 
scolding they can " get on the nerves " 
of an elephant very effectively. In a circus, 
and it is always in circuses and travelling 
menageries that these accidents occur, the men 
who attend the elephants often ride them in 
performances, and make them perform tricks. A 
good deal of hurry, some roughness, and occa- 
sional punishment are inevitable in these per- 
formances, all of which the animal carefully 
remembers. One day it has a fit of temper, or 
turns sulky — they will sulk for hours— and then 
the keeper is attacked. Circus elephants have 
also a trick of killing people " accidentally." By a 
movement backwards, or to one side, they will 
quietly jam a man up against the wall of a stable or 
a shed. One of the elephants at Olympia did 
this some years ago, and tbe first keeper killed 
by " Charlie " met his fate in this way. It should 
also be remembered that the elephant is one of 
the most nervous of all beasts, that one at the 
Zoo died of sheer fright caused by a thunderstorm, 
and that a highly nervous temperament of this 
kind may eiisily be worked into a frenzy by 
excitement following ill-treatnjent. But this is 
not the fault of elephant temper. — Spectator, 
Feb. 24. 
CINNAMON: THE LONDON QUAETEKLY 
SALE. 
The news to hand by mail touching the 
first quarterly .sale of cinnamon this year 
ill Loudon must be very cheering to pro- 
prietors of estates. While tea is having its 
weekly ups and downs, cinnamon seems to 
be holding its own, if not actually forging 
ahead, notwithstanding imprecedentedly 
large shipments. During a visit of a couple 
of days to the Southern Province and a 
drive of some 20 miles in the country inland 
between Galle and Dodanduwa, we were 
greatly surprised to see how freely cinnamon 
cultivation is being maintained and extended ; 
and the experienced manager of Baddegama 
assured us that an annual rent of from R25 
to R30 an acre can now be got for 
cinnamon gardens which perhaps had 
so far not cost more that K50 in 
outlay per acre. We saw, when reviewing 
the exports for last year, what immense 
strides the spice had taken, both in quills 
and chips, excluding altogether from con- 
sideration the wretched fraud separately 
catalogued as wild cinnamon ; and we ex- 
pressed a natural fear lest heavy shipments 
coupled with the disturbance which adultera- 
tion and spurious spice might create, might 
lead to a fall in prices. That our apprehen- 
sions were rather wide of the mark, we 
learnt by wire three weeks ago, when a steady 
market with better prices for fine qualities, 
and a slight fall for inferior bark, was 
reported. The information brought by the 
mail is even more satisfactory than the 
commercial telegram foreshadowed. 
The quantity of plantation spice offered 
was 1,650 bales, or about the same quantity 
as in February last year, when the catalogues 
showed 1,649 bales. We regret to find this 
comparison omitted in the Report we ap- 
23end ; but the usual form has had to be varied 
in more particulai-s thon one. The natural 
objection of shippers to their carefully made 
up bales being undone in London, and re- 
baled at two or three times the cost of sort- 
ing, baling and stencilling here, has led to a 
great deal of cinnamon being described in 
the catalogues as "unworked" in London. 
A further distinction has had to be introduced 
between " plantation " and " wild " spice ; 
and to find space for these changes, there 
have been omissions, which we regret, in 
particulars referring to previous sales. The 
Report which we published last December 
on the November auctions, did not distinguish 
between plantation and wild spice, but 
merely informed us that the offerings 
were 4,450 bales of both sorts — an unpre- 
cedentedly large catalogue. Of this im- 
mense quantity, the proportion of genuine 
spice was by no means small ; and although 
as much as 1,200 bales of this were cleared 
in the room, the tone of the sales was re- 
ported dull. It is not a little then that, 
with a full average quantity, the sale last 
month should have gone off well, the lead- 
ing marks fetching late rates, and " A S G P " 
realising exceptionally high prices. 
This mark represents Golua Pokuna 
Estate in the Kadirane District, whose pro- 
duce, under excellent management, has al- 
ways topped the market; but from Is 6d to 
Is 9d per lb for the first three qualities is 
