THE ELEPHANTS AT THE FRANCO-BRITISH EXHIBITION.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Sru.,—I venture to beg your assistance in a protest. My grievance is with that part of the performance in the Indian Arena which consists in hustling two or three stately elephants on to a steep slope some twenty feet in height, down which they must glissade into a tank. Now this is not an edifying spectacle; like the east wind, it is good for neither man nor beast. The elephants protest in every limb when they are brought to the edge of the slope. apd the shrill trumpeting of
the biggest was a very pathetic remonstrance. It made some of us hot with anger, even to the point of saying bitter words to Mr. Hagenbeck and his assistants. If it pleased any one, it was by a pleasure allied to that which is amused by bullying, —and a very bad form of bullying. ; Yet, unless the Press interferes, the elephants are likely to be ducked three times a day as long as the Exhibition remains open. It is said that they enjoy bathing. So do many of us, but we do not wish to be pushed off a high spring board every time we take a swim. Seriously, Sir, I submit that such a performance as this is quite unworthy of the Franco-British Exhibition, and ought never to have been given, and I hope that you will agree with
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