ROGUE ELEPHANT'S WILD CAREER

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2242, 31 August 1914, Page 3

ROGUE ELEPHANT'S WILD CAREER

DEATH OF TWO WOMEN; An extraordinary, but well-substaiir tiated, etory of a rogue elephant is told by the Calcutta, correspondent of the "Morning Post." On June 2 a, report was brought down to the manager of a tea estate near Siliguriyto the effect that a huge rogue elephant had destroyed' some of the huts in the gardens under- his care, aad had killed two women. On the following day the report was substantiated, and the details communicated to the Raj Kuinar of Jalpaiguri. It appears that the elephant's first trick'was to rip the-roof off a Pahari .woman's Irat. at the time the woman, with her baby on her back, was crouched under the dwelling. The elephant picked the woman up bodily and flung her into the surrounding undergrowth. It' then made" for her again, and transfixed the whole of her thorax with its right tusk. The poor woman was killed, but the life of the baby in some miraculous manner was preserved. The elephant then returned to the huts and overtook a woman running from ono dwelling to another. It threw her to the ground, and then literally pulverised heT head and the upper portion of her body. Before the animal could be declared by the deputy commissioner te be a roguo dangerous to human life some formalities had to be gone through; and it was not until Juiie 5 that a hunting party could set'out in pursuit of the' beast. On. the following day a beat on seven elephants proved a draw, but a tiger spoor seems in some way to have put the party off the track. On the second day of .the pursuit three parties led by the Raj Kumar and two other experienced shikaris went out in separate parties, and fresh spoor marks were found late in t3ie evening. On the Monday the ground was found to bo unfit for elephants, so tho expedition had to bo conducted on foot. That day the Raj Kumar stumbled unexpectedly right en to the rogue, and fell back to make a stand with the other leading guns. Unfortunately tihe elephant, instead of having matters out, turned back and disappeared before he had oxposed a vulnerable spot. It thus remains a menace to tho tea gardens until an organised State elephaiit 'hunt can take place.