Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 May 1882 — A Nation in Mourning, [ARTICLE]

A Nation in Mourning,

The Siamese Nation was recently plunged into mourning by the death of “His Sublime Grandeur the Court and Body Elephant of the King. ” Says the Indian Herald: “We regret to learn that the animal departed this life in a highly sensational manner, fraught with irreparable disaster to the staff of his household. One morning, after a hearty breakfast, he went mad quite unexpectedly, and trampled five of his attendants to death. To shoot him would have been sacrilege. An attempt to tranquillize his perturbed spirit by encircling him with a hnge ring of holy bamboo, specially blessed by the Holy Priest of his own particular temple, proved worse than ineffectual, for he broke throngh the ring and all but terminated the High Priest’s career upon the spot. He was then with great difficulty driven into a close coart of the palace, where, after several furious endeavors to batter down the walls with his tusks, he suddenly toppled over on his side, and uttered a last cry of rage. Naturally enough this heavy calamity was attributted to criminal carelessness on the part of one or other of the attendants in trusted with the sacred elephant’s feeding. The King thereupon interrogated the members of His Sublime Grandeur’s household in person with respect to their treatment of the illustrious deceased, and failing to elicit any individual confession of delinquency, decreed that they should one and all be punished. Having thus vindicated propriety, his Majesty assumed the garb of woe, and is understood to be still inconsolable for his loss.” —New York Tribune. “I’d have you know that my uncle was a bannister of the law.” “ A fig for your bannister 1” retorted Mrs. Partington, turning up her nose ; “ haven’t I a cousin as is a corridor in the navy? ”