RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume C, Issue 29474, 28 March 1961, Page 22

RANDOM REMINDER

ELEPHONEEXCHANGE

Circus publicity agents miss very few tricks, but it was apparently left to a printer in a whimsical mood to set running a whole chain of speculation about a recent attraction at a circus. The report of the circus referred coyly to the popularity of an “eiephone", but did not explain just what one was. Telephone calls to both the circus and the telephone division of the P. and T. Department found all the elephones engaged, leaving the puzzled circus fan (and who isn’t?) to work it out for himself. Is it an elephant untroubled by “ants"? Or it is. more simply, an elephant grown used to living in

a modern world who makes trunk calls. Whatever the explanation it made good publicity, better even than the sometimes published pictures of circus animals breasting the bar in some public house and sampling, usually suspiciously, the local brew. Apart from the obvious risk of making elephants or lions, or even orangoutang, alcoholics (and thus becoming a charge on the public funds) there are other drawbacks to the practice of drinking by animals. A reporter in Christchurch once was sent to accompany an elephant and an orang-outan for a glass of beer. He found them dull drinking companions, although each

had a fair swallow, but what really irked him was that on leaving the hotel—reading from left to right reporter, circus hand, elephant and orang-outan —he discovered that all the time the orang-outan had tucked into a hairy fist a . half-crown, courtesy of the circus. The orangoutan was due to shout, had the money—but instead drank the drink the reporter paid for (hoping, probably against hope, to get it back as expenses) and then was mean enough to hang on to his owit money. It soured that man against drinking with orang-outans for the rest of his life. In future he will stick to elephones.