As soon, therefore, as his sudden death was resolved on, Mr. Tyler went down to Mr. Clarke, and acquainting him with the danger arising out of the immediate necessity, suggested the instant removal of every person from the Change below, and the closing of the Change gates. Mr. Clarke, and all belonging to his establishment, saw the propriety of their speedy departure, and in a few minutes the gates were barred and locked. By the adoption of these precautions, if the elephant had broken down the floor no lives would have been lost, although much valuable property would have been destroyed; and, in the event contemplated, the animal himself would have been confined within the basement. Still, however, a slight exertion of his enormous strength could have forced the gates. If he had made his entry into the Strand, it is impossible to conjecture the mischief that might have ensued in that crowded thoroughfare, from his infuriated passion.
On Mr. Tyler’s return up stairs from Mr. Clarke, it was evident from the elephant’s extreme rage, that not a moment was to be lost. Three rifles therefore were immediately loaded, and Mr. Herring, accompanied by Mr. Stevens’s assistant entered the menagerie, each with a rifle, and took their stations for the purpose of firing. Mr. Tyler pointed out to the keepers the window places, and such recesses as they might fly to if the elephant broke through, and enjoining each man to select a particular spot as his own exclusive retreat, concluded by showing the danger of any two of them running to the same place for shelter. The keepers with their pikes, placed themselves in the rear of Mr. Herring and his assistant, who stood immediately opposite the den, at about the distance of twelve feet in the front. Mr. Herring requested Cartmell to call in his usual tone to the elephant when he exhibited him to visiters, on which occasions the animal was accustomed to face his friends with the hope of receiving something from their hands. Cartmell’s cry of “Chunee! Chunee! Chuneelah!” in his exhibiting tone, produced a somewhat favourable posture for his enemies, and he instantly received two bullets aimed from the rifles towards the heart; they entered immediately behind the shoulder blade, at the distance of about three inches from each other. The moment the balls had perforated his body he made a fierce and heavy rush at the front, which further weakened the gates, shivered the side bar next to the dislodged story-post, and drove it out into the menagerie. The fury of the animal’s assault was terrific, the crash of the timbers, the hallooing of the keepers in their retreat, the calls for “rifles! rifles!” and the confusion and noise incident to the scene, rendered it indescribably terrific. The assailants rallied in a few seconds, and came pointing their spears with threats. Mr. Tyler having handed two other rifles, they were discharged as before; and, as before, produced a similar desperate lounge from the enraged beast at the front of his den. Had it been effective, and he had descended on the floor, his weight must have inevitably carried it, together with himself, his assailants, and the greater part of the lions, and other animals, into the Change below, and by possibility have buried the entire menagerie in ruins. “Rifles! rifles!” were again called for, and from this awful crisis it was only in the power of Mr. Tyler and some persons outside, to load quick enough for the discharge of one rifle at a time. The maddened animal turned round in his den incessantly, apparently with the design of keeping his head from the riflemen, who after the first two discharges could only obtain single shots at him. The shutter inside of a small grated window, which stood in a projection into the den, at one of the back corners, was now unshipped, and from this position Mr. Herring fired several shots through the grating. The elephant thus attacked in the rear as well as the front, flew round the den with the speed of a race-horse, uttering frightful yells and screams, and stopping at intervals to bound from the back against the front. The force of these rushes shook the entire building, and excited the most terrifying expectation that he would bring down the entire mass of wood and iron-work, and project himself among his assailants.
After the discharge of about thirty balls, he stooped and sunk deliberately on his haunches. Mr. Herring, conceiving that a shot had struck him in a vital part, cried out—“He’s down, boys! he’s down!” and so he was, but it was only for a moment: he leapt up with renewed vigour, and at least eighty balls were successively discharged at him from different positions before he fell a second time. Previous to that fall, Mr. Joshua Brookes had arrived with his son, and suggested to Mr. Herring to aim especially at the ear, at the eye, and at the gullet.
The two soldiers despatched from Somerset-house by Mr. Cross came in a short time before Mr. Brookes, and discharged about three or four rounds of ball cartridge, which was all the amunition they had. It is a remarkable instance of the animal’s subjection to his keeper, that though in this deranged state, he sometimes recognised Cartmell’s usual cry of “Chunee! Chunee! Chuneelah!” by sounds with which he was accustomed to answer the call, and that more than once, when Cartmell called out “Bite Chunee! bite!” which was his ordinary command to the elephant to kneel, he actually knelt, and in that position received the balls in the parts particularly desired to be aimed at. Cartmell, therefore, kept himself as much as possible out of view as one of the assailants, in order that his voice might retain its wonted ascendency. He and Newsam, and their comrades took every opportunity of thrusting at him. Cartmell, armed with a sword at the end of a pole, which he afterwards affixed to a rifle, pierced him several times.
On the elephant’s second fall he lay with his face towards the back of the den, and with one of his feet thrust out between the bars, so that the toes touched the menagerie floor. At this time he had from a hundred and ten to a hundred and twenty balls in him; as he lay in a posture, Cartmell thrust the sword into his body to the hilt. The sanguinary conflict had now lasted nearly an hour; yet, with astonishing alacrity, he again rose, without evincing any sign that he had sustained vital injury, though it was apparent he was much exhausted. He endeavoured to conceal his head by keeping his rear to the front; and lest he should either make a successful effort at the gate, or, on receiving his death-wound, fall backwards against it, which would inevitably have carried the whole away, the keepers availed themselves of the juncture to rapidly lash the gates of his den with a chain and ropes so securely, that he could not force them without bringing down the entire front.
Mr. Herring now directed his rifle constantly to the ear: one of these balls took so much effect, that the elephant suddenly rushed round from the blow, and made his last furious effort at the gates. Mr. Tyler describes this rush as the most awful of the whole. If the gates had not been firmly lashed, the animal must have come through; for, by this last effort, he again dislodged them, and they were kept upright by the chain and ropes alone. Mr. Herring from this time chiefly directed his fire at the gullet; at last he fell, but with so much deliberation, and in a position so natural to his usual habits, that he seemed to have lain down to rest himself. Mr. Herring continued to fire at him, and spears were ran into his sides, but he remained unmoved, nor did he stir from the first moment of his fall. Four or five discharges from a rifle into his ear produced no effect: it was evident that he was without sense, and that he had dropped dead, into the posture wherein he always lay when alive.
The fact that such an animal, of such prodigious size and strength, was destroyed in such a place, without an accident, from the commencement to the close of the assault, is a subject of real astonishment.
The situation of Mr. Cross’s menagerie, after the removal of the elephant, was equally and almost as agreeably surprising. A partial dissection took place on the Sunday, and in the course of the same day the body of the animal, with the skeleton, hide, and every particle of the remains, were removed. A stranger entering the place on Tuesday, ignorant of the recent event, could not have suspected such an occurrence. The menagerie was destitute of offensive smell, and, in every respect, preserved its usual appearance of order and cleanliness. Thus much is testified by the editor of the Every-Day Book from personal observation; and, if he were not too unwell to write more, he would add some interesting particulars respecting “Chuneelah,” which are necessarily deferred till the next sheet.
A representation of the outside front of the den seeming essential to the right understanding of the narrative, an [engraving] of it is added from a drawing made by Mr. John Cleghorn, the architectural draftsman, for that purpose. It is minutely correct in form and proportion, and shows the bar which the elephant broke and displaced in his last lounge. Though of solid oak, six inches square, it broke beneath his rush like a slight stick.