ke slander for me to say that the elephant, which is
admittedly one of the most intelligent members of the animal creation,
is also one of the most vicious and treacherous. But it is a fact all
the same. I have seen one of those beasts, that had been fed and
treated with the greatest kindness for years by his keeper, turn upon
him like a tiger, and, seizing him with that wonderful trunk of his,
dash him to death before he could do more than utter a cry of protest
and terror.

I have seen another, after waiting weeks for the opportunity, suddenly
grasp an innocent person, and, kneeling upon him with his beam-like
legs, knead him out of all semblance of humanity.

Columbus, who was the main attraction of Barnum's establishment some
forty years ago, killed several keepers, and was likely to start on one
of his terrible rampages at any moment. The giving away of a bridge in
New England so injured him that he died, long before any of my young
readers were born.

An elephant, fully as bad as Columbus, was Vladdok, who was brought to
this country when quite young. A glimpse at his enormous ears told his
African nativity at once, those from Asia and Ceylon having much
smaller ears. He belonged to the old traveling circus of Blarcom &
Burton, and made several journeys through our country in the days when
those establishments found no use for the railways, but patiently
plodded from town to town, delighting the hearts and eyes of our
grandfathers and grandmothers when they were children just as we are
now.

Vladdok had killed two keepers, besides badly wounding a couple of
spectators in Memphis, when he yielded to one of his vicious moods. He
had been fired upon and wounded more times than any one could remember,
and Mr. Blarcom, who always traveled with his show, had been on the
point more than once of ordering his destruction; but he was of such
large size and possessed such extraordinary intelligence, that he
constituted the main attraction of the exhibition and he hesitated,
well aware that sooner or later, the wicked fellow would die "with his
boots on."

It was after an afternoon performance in one of the Western States that
Vladdok indulged in his last rampage. His sagacious keeper had come to
understand the animal so well, that he knew the outbreak was coming.
While Vladdok was unusually tractable and obedient, there was a
dangerous glitter in his small eyes, and an occasional nervous movement
of his head, w