posted 03-19-2007 05:30 PM                      

Another tale of elephant abuse:

"Murderous Mary"

quote:

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Mighty Mary was a five ton Asian elephant in a circus named Sparks World Famous Shows. Her death is sometimes interpreted as a cautionary tale of circus animal abuse during the early twentieth century.

On September 11, 1916 a hotel worker named Red Eldridge was hired as an assistant elephant trainer by the circus. On the evening of September 12 he was killed by Mary in Kingsport, Tennessee while taking her to a nearby pond to splash and drink.

There are several accounts of his death but the most widely accepted version is that he prodded her behind the ear with a hook after she reached down to nibble on a watermelon rind. She went into a rage, snatched Eldridge with her trunk, threw him against a drink stand and deliberately crushed his head with her foot. Most accounts indicate that she calmed down afterward and didn't charge the onlookers, who began chanting, "Kill the elephant!"

She was impounded by the local sheriff, and the leaders of several nearby towns threatened not to allow the circus to visit if Mary was included. The circus owner, Charlie Sparks, reluctantly decided that the only way to quickly resolve the potentially ruinous situation was to kill the elephant in public. On the following day, a foggy and rainy September 13, 1916, she was transported by rail to Erwin, Tennessee where a crowd of over 2500 people (including most of the town's children) assembled in the Clinchfield railroad yard.

The elephant was hanged by the neck from a railcar-mounted industrial crane.

Although the authenticity of a widely distributed (and heavily retouched) photo of her death was disputed years later by Argosy magazine, other photographs taken during the incident confirm its provenance.]

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