Democratic Sentinel, Volume 21, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 August 1897 — Elephants as a Lien on an Estate. [ARTICLE]

Elephants as a Lien on an Estate.

Seventy-six big dirty elephants are eating up what is left of a once valuable estate of an American in Siam. The herd can’t be sold, leased or pawned. -Nothing can be done with them but let them eat. And while they eat the State Department at Washington is trying to see what it can do to the Siamese Government. Dr. Marion A. Cheek, “the teak king,” defaulted in the interest on the loan ho had obtained from Siam. The government seized his property and at once set to work to make it valueless. Five hundred thousand dollars’ worth of logs were left to rot in the streams and when it came to a settlement the proceeds from the sale were not enough to meet the claims of the government. Then Siam seized the herd of elephants which were used in getting the logs to the water ways. In the meantime Dr. Cheek died in Siam and his widow returned to California. The Siam Government will not allow the herd to be sold, rented, mortgaged or any use made of them. Their feed and care are charged up against the estate. So successful has been the course of the King of Siam that there is not enough money 'in the estate to pay for counsel when the case is submitted to the arbitrator, Sir Richard J. Hannen, chief justice and consul general of England at Hong Kong. It Is proposed now to get the United States to hire expert counsel and take a Hen on any judgment to cover the exjxmse.—New York Press.