The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals: A Book of Personal Observations

"Of course the elephant was killed by the shock, its head being completely smashed.... It is believed that this particular rogue had been responsible for considerable damage to villages in the vicinity of Lopbusi. A number of houses have been pulled down recently and havoc wrought in other ways." On another occasion a vicious rogue elephant elected to try conclusions with a railway train. In 1906, on the Korat branch of the Siamese State Railway, a bull elephant attacked a freight train running at full speed. He charged the rushing locomotive, with the result that the locomotive and several cars were derailed and sent down the side of the grade, and two persons were killed. The elephant was killed outright and buried under the wreck of the train. This occurred in open country, where there was no excuse for an elephant on the track, and therefore the charge of the rogue was wholly gratuitous. Captive elephants whose managers are too humane to punish them for manifestations of meanness become spoiled by their immunity, just as mean children are spoiled when fond and foolish parents feel that their little jackets are too sacred ever to be tanned. Such complete immunity is as bad for bad elephants as for bad children, but in practice the severe punishment of an elephant with real benefit to the animal is next door to an impossibility, and so we never attempt it. We do, however, inflict mild punishments, of the fourth order of efficiency. Animals and Men. Among the animals that are most courageous against man are the species and individuals that are most familiar with him, and feel for him both contempt and hatred. The cat scratches, the bad dog bites, the vicious horse kicks or bites, and the mean pet bear, tiger, ape, leopard, bison or deer will attempt injury or murder whenever they think the chance has arrived. I know a lady whose pet monkey is a savage and mean little beast, and because she never thrashes it as it deserves, both of her arms from wrist to elbow have been scarified by its teeth.