CURIOUS COURT CASE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20602, 28 June 1930, Page 2 (Supplement)

CURIOUS COURT CASE.

DAMAGES FOR ELEPHANT. "MARY'S" TASTE FOR MUSIC. A curious Court trial recently took placo in Paris. The owner of a young elephant sued a railway company, because tho elephant has lost all tasto for music following a train accident. Before the accident Mary, tho -elephant, was a dexterous tambourine player. Sho was also a marvel, according to tho story, with tho trombone. Since the collision in which sho was so soverely shaken up, Mary wants to have nothing more to do with music. She goes round in a sort of stupor. The dances that she danced formerly with so much gusto have lost all attraction. Her owner asked damages. The matter was thrashed out in Court and the discourse of tho lawyer who appeared for Mary's owner was such an

eloquent and interesting digression upon elephants in general that the five judges and the clerks beneath them sat for three hours with mouths agape. The learned advocate began by saying that tho elephant is a sympathetic, just, and generous beast in the full sense of the word. " That animal of colossal proportions and boundless strength never makes a malicious use of his power except when ho has been maltreated," exclaimed tho lawyer in his peroration, and he then went on to illustrate his thesis with a recital of a series of incidents, each one even more interesting than the preceding. The judges were almost moved to tears by the lawyer's recital of the elephant's virtues. Without withdrawing for doliberation they awarded the ownor of Mary, the damages he sought.