MR. BARNUM'S WHITE ELEPHANT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 7002, 26 April 1884, Page 2 (Supplement)

MR. BARNUM'S WHITE ELEPHANT.

The latest files of American; papers give the story of the negotiations that preceded Mr. Barnum's purchase of the famous white elephant. - According to the New York Tribune, Mr. Barnum's agent, Mr. Gaylord, who in the first instance approached the King of Siam with an offer of £20,000, or more, for a white elephant, was compelled to withdraw from Bangkok with much expedition to avoid, the consequences of the indignation excited by his proposal to purchase so Baored an animal. Even when the purchase of a white elephant had been contracted for with the agents of an irreligious or avaricious Siamese nobleman, and the animal had been delivered at Moulmmn and thence shipped to Singapore, and £5000 had been paid as an instalment of its-price, it was killed at the latter port by poison, administered, as was believed, by' '! Siamese emissaries," sent to rescue it from the "dishonour,of being exhibited to unbelievers. At Mandalay, however, courtiers were found willing to take large bribes to facilitate Mr. Barnum's project ; and, after months of diplomacy, a sacred white elephant, the "genuineness" of which is guaranteed by documents under the seal of King Theebau, was handed over to the representatives of the great showman for £40,000.