[to be continued.]
[JUMBO.]
BY MRS. ZADEL B. GUSTAFSON.
Just at the present moment there is not, I think, in all Europe or America a personage more talked about than Jumbo. Even the Queen, who was shot at a few weeks ago by a poor crazy man, but not hurt; even the Czar, who is shut up in one of his Russian palaces for fear of being shot at, are having less said about them.
Jumbo, as I am perfectly sure you all know as well as I do, is an elephant, the biggest elephant in captivity, as gentle as he is big, and the English people, young and old, are very fond of him.
He is an African elephant, and Sir Samuel Baker, a Fellow of the Zoological Society, who knows a great deal about elephants, says that he knew Jumbo when he was a baby about four and a half feet high, and had just been captured by Arabs on the shore of the Settite River, in Abyssinia, in 1861. Now Jumbo, the pride of the English Zoo, is twenty-one years old, and measures eleven feet in height to his withers, which is the high ridge between the shoulder-blades just at the end of the neck. He is very skillful in catching buns and apples which are thrown to him by his young admirers.
A FAREWELL RIDE ON JUMBO.
Our picture of this enormous but gentle creature represents him in the act of giving a farewell ride to a party of his little friends. From this picture you will see that Jumbo's head and ears differ from those of the Indian species. His forehead is not so high and prominent; his ears are much larger, of a different and handsomer shape, while the brows are very large and full over the eyes, and the eyes themselves, when you can see them through the thick long lashes, have a really wonderful expression of intelligence and dignity. He has a long trunk, very powerful and graceful; but his tusks seem to be only roots, just showing through the skin at the sides of the face, and it is said that he has kept them worn down by rubbing them against the walls of his den.
As soon as it was known that our great American showman, Mr. Barnum, had bought Jumbo for his travelling show, Jumbo, big as he is, was in everybody's mouth, and a very great fuss was made about his own unwillingness to go. The newspapers took up the matter, and gave whole columns of talk to Jumbo. It seemed to be taken for granted that nothing more dreadful could happen to the poor beast than to fall into Mr. Barnum's hands.
The newspapers printed a great many letters from children, who offered their pocket-money, in sums from sixpence to three or five shillings, to buy Jumbo back again. They all wrote with the same idea, that Jumbo would be cruelly used, and would surely die, if he were taken away; but still it was quite clear that the little writers of these letters were not entirely unselfish in their grief, for they had a great deal to say about the nice rides they had already had, and still wished to have, on Jumbo's enormous back.
Older people went so far as to propose to raise money to pay back to Mr. Barnum the £2000 he had given for Jumbo, and perhaps £400 or £500 besides for his disappointment, but nothing more was said of this plan after Mr. Barnum telegraphed that £100,000 would not buy Jumbo back. As Mr. Scott, Jumbo's keeper, said to me, "Mr. Barnum understands his business," and it began to appear that the Zoo Society Council had not understood theirs. Every one who knows Mr. Barnum knows that he is exceedingly kind to animals, and that they thrive, are happy, and live long under his care.
But the English people are not so well acquainted with Mr. Barnum as they will be, perhaps, when Jumbo comes back to the English "Zoo"—as Mr. Barnum very kindly says that he may—and tells his own story. And, after all, it is only fair that Jumbo should try for himself the flavor of American buns, and find that the boys and girls of America are as pleasant to carry and as kind as their English cousins.
People old and young flocked daily to the "Zoo." They carried bags and baskets of buns, crackers, and sweetmeats, and everybody went straight to the elephant-house. Parrots, monkeys, pelicans, and lions were nowhere. On Ash-Wednesday (February 22), I went myself, and when I first entered the elephant-house I thought it must be all going to tumble down, I heard such a loud, startling noise. But it was only Alice, the elephant that they call Jumbo's wife, calling for food. The sound she made by gathering her breath in her cheeks, and blowing it forcibly through her long trunk, was much like that made by crashing both hands strongly down on the bass keys of a church organ when all the loud stops are on.
The greatest crowd was in front of Jumbo's cell. He did not call for food, but stretched his long and elastic trunk out in front of us just like a plate for pennies in church. When let out of the garden, he walked quietly with an even and slow step—which took him along so fast, though, that Scott had to run to keep up with him—until he came to the ladder where the children climb to mount him. The saddle, or howdah, as it is called, was put on his back, and more than a dozen boys and girls mounted, and away went Jumbo, stepping so slowly, but going fifteen feet at a step. Five times I saw him go down the promenade with his laughing load, and come back again to the ladder for a new supply, and each time he looked larger to me than ever. Then he went back with his keeper to his house, and I came away.
After Jumbo was sold, and the problem of moving him came to be considered, an effort was made to get him out of the Gardens and to the Millwall Docks on foot. He went along willingly enough, Scott leading him, until they reached the end of the "Zoo" grounds, but before going out into the road he tried it cautiously with his feet, and perceiving at once that it did not feel like the shingle paths in the "Zoo," he was afraid, and would go no farther.
Then a great box was made, which stood open at both ends. This was mounted on strong wheels, and was so placed in the garden gateway that when the elephants passed out from their own garden into the main grounds they had to walk through it. The wheels were sunk into the ground on a track, and the floor of the box was on a level with the ground. Alice walked through the box back and forth quite willingly, but for some days it was impossible to coax Jumbo to go into it.
Scott was asked to try whipping Jumbo, but he answered that he had never yet struck his favorite a blow, and he never should. In all other respects Jumbo was perfectly obedient and gentle, but he seemed to think that the box was a trap, and to know almost as well as everybody else that if he once went in, he might not come out. It was the intention to let him get used to the box by going through it, and then it was thought that when at last it was closed upon him he would not mind so much about it.
He was also put in chains, in order to accustom him to being fastened during the voyage. At first they were only put on in the mornings, but he made so much fuss and trouble about having them put on the last time, it was thought unwise to remove them again. They are cased in leather, so as not to fret him in the least. They were spread in loops, all over the floor of his cell, and men stood ready at different points to draw them up around him the moment he should place his feet within any of the loops; but the intelligent fellow managed to avoid them for some time.
But he grew tired at last, and began to thrash about with his trunk and ears, and Scott, who was in his cell with him, trying to persuade him, got suddenly pushed up against the wall by a backward movement of Jumbo's huge body. In a moment more he would have been crushed to death, but he had the presence of mind to call kindly to Jumbo, who understood, turned instantly, and released him. Jumbo then became quiet, and the chains were placed.
Kind treatment finally set Jumbo's suspicions at rest, and he was persuaded to walk through the strong box and back again. When this had been done a number of times the box was fastened at both ends, and the poor fellow was a prisoner. He was then, without further delay, shipped on board the Assyrian Monarch, and on the 22d of March started on his voyage across the Atlantic.
It is claimed that Jumbo was sold because he had now become liable to have the "must," a disease peculiar to most full-grown elephants, in which they become very dangerous. Jumbo has had only one attack, and was well behaved during it when let out of his cell. Scott does not feel afraid of him, and Mr. Barnum has so long had the care of elephants that we think Jumbo's best friend need not worry about him.
[THE COBBLER WHO KEPT SCHOOL IN A WORKSHOP.]
Did you ever hear of John Pounds? Probably not, and yet he was one of the world's benefactors. He was born in 1766, in Portsmouth, England.
In early life he learned the trade of a shipwright, but was so injured by a fall that he had to abandon this. He then mastered the art of mending shoes, and hired a little room in a weather-beaten tenement, where for a while he lived alone, except for his birds. He loved birds dearly, and always had a number of them flying about his room, perching on his shoulder, or feeding from his hand.
In the course of time, a little cripple boy, his nephew, came to live with Uncle John and the linnets and sparrows. The poor child had not the use of his feet, which overlapped each other, and turned inward. The kind uncle did not rest until he had gradually untwisted the feet, strengthening them by an apparatus of old shoes and leather, and finally taught them to walk.
Then he thought how much more pleasantly the time would pass for the boy if he knew how to read and write, and so he began to instruct him. Presently it occurred to him that he could teach a class as easily as he could manage one pupil. So he invited some of the neighboring children in, and, as the years went on, this singular picture might be seen:
In the centre of the little shop, six feet wide and about eighteen feet long, the lame cobbler, with his jolly face and twinkling eyes, would be seated, his last or lapstone on his knee, and his hands busily plying the needle and thread. All around him would be faces. Dark eyes, blue eyes, brown eyes, would shine from every corner, and the hum of young voices and the tapping of slate-pencils were mingled with the singing of the birds which enjoyed the buzz of the school.
Some of the pupils sat on the steps of the narrow stairway which led up to the loft which was John's bedroom. Others were on boxes or blocks of wood, and some sat contentedly on the floor. They learned to read, write, and cipher as far as the Rule of Three, and besides they learned good morals, for much homely wisdom fell from the cobbler's lips.
Hundreds of boys who had no other chance—for he gathered his scholars from the poorest of the poor—learned all they ever knew of books from this humble teacher. His happiest days were when some sunburned sailor or soldier would stop in his doorway, perhaps with a parrot or a monkey in his arms, saying, "Why, master dear, you surely have not forgotten me, I hope?"
John Pounds taught his little school for more than forty years, never asking nor accepting a cent of payment from any one.
At the age of seventy-two, on January 1, 1839, he suddenly died, while looking with delight at a sketch of his school which had just been made by an artist. For many days the children of the place were inconsolable, and by twos and threes they came and stood by the closed door which in John Pounds's time had always been open to the needy.
A life like this, so lowly yet so useful, contains lessons for us all.