AN ELEPHANT TRAGEDY IN INDIA.

Evening Post, Volume L, Issue 66, 14 September 1895, Page 2 (Supplement)

AN ELEPHANT TRAGEDY IN INDIA.

During a recent religious festival at Alvartirunagari, on the banks of the Tambramini (says the Madras Standard;, a terrible tragedy was enacted by an eiephant. Like most large temples, it has its periodical festivals, one of which has just been celebrated. Certain elephants were brought down from Nunguneri and Tinnevelly for the festivities of the occasion. All went smoothly till unfortunately the large elephant of Nunguneri, being in rut, ran amuck. The mahout unwittingly took up a little child (son of the Temple Dar makartha) and placed it in front of him on the neck of the elephant Alarmed at the state of the elephant, tho mahout endeavoured quietly to pass the child out of danger by handing it to somebody behind He was not quick enough to elude the sagacity of the elephant, which snatched up the child, put it into its mouth, and began munching it. The mahout, horrified at tho sight, jumped down and tried to extricate the child, which he succeeded in doing, but not before the child was well-nigh dead. Indeed, it only breathed for a few minutes afterwards, and then expired. Enraged beyond all bounds, the animal became furious, and in its mad rage seized the mahout, dashed him on the ground, and then trampled out any little breath that might have still remained in his body. And here comes a strange and touchingincident. Eepenting seemingly of his awful misdeed, the elephant gathered up what was the moment before his master, proceeded to his (the mahout's house,) and depositing his mournful burden at his door passed on. The people generally in great dread closed all their doors and windows. The elephant wildly rushed along the streets and came to the temple, the door of which, too, had been closed. It thereupon bartered the door, and passing into the enclosure f urioußly attacked the little elephant of Tinneveliy, which it pierced with its tusks and soon killed. Emerging thence, the animal rushed madly along to the river close by, where it began throwing mud and sand all over itself. In the meantime the police constables had got their muskets loaded, and climbing out of danger took pot-shots at the furious animal, which they eventually succeeded in disabling and ultimately killing. A sham Viscount has beeu Hontenccd to three years' penal servitude at Portsmouth for bigamy. He is said to have innrried eleven wivee, some of whom ho loft penniless after possessing himself of their bolongiugs. At an inquest ou the body of an infant near Wolverhampton recently, the mother stated that she had had twins on five occasions, only three out of her sixteen children being alive to-day. It is a belief of oystor-catohors that tho oyster is peculiarly sensitive to sudden jarp. The careful oysterman never chops wood on board lest he kill the oysters, and he dreads a thunderstorm for the same reason. One of the sight* of London just now is the assemblage of lady cyclists in Battersea Park. Bicycling breakfusts are indulged in under the trees. A shark recently washed ashore at Midian, British Columbia, had two perfect tuils, three distinct eyes, and what appeared to ba the rudiment of a fin or flipper hanging to | the under jaw.