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Star (Christchurch), Issue 19238, 27 November 1930, Page 4

The sign of the “Elephant and Castle” would appear to have been taken from an early traveller’s account of the use of the elephant in battle. Caesar Frederick, a merchant of Venice, who spent eighteen years in travelling in the East, about the middle of the sixteenth century, states that the King of Pegu had 4000 war elephants with wooden castles on their backs. Milton has the phrase of “elephants indorsed with towers of archers,” in his description of the retreat of Antony from Parthia. German silver is not silver. Three metals are included in its composition —one half copper and one quarter each of nickel and zinc.