Reading about “Bad Elephant Far Stream,” I guarantee you, it will bring tears to your eyes. How could an
“advanced culture” (quotes fully intended) such as we think we are be so
thoughtlessly cruel? But we are.
Author Samuel Hawley lets
me tell you about his first fictionalized book about a circus Elephant named Topsy.
Don’t be deceived by the fiction-label of the book.
Topsy was real.
So was her plight of being tortured into performing for a circus.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Bad Elephant Far Stream is an animal story for grown-ups, a novel about the odyssey of a
circus elephant, told from her own perspective, through her own eyes. Inspired
by the true story of the circus elephant Topsy, the subject of the 1903 Thomas
Edison film "Electrocution of an Elephant," it begins in the forests
of Ceylon in the late 1860s with the capture of a baby elephant known to her
own kind as Far Stream. She is taken to America chained in a ship, a journey of
several months, and sent to the Adam Forepaugh Circus in Philadelphia. There,
Far Stream embarks on a new life under the big top, appearing first as
"Baby Annie," then, when she grows bigger, as "Topsy," part
of Forepaugh’s famed elephant dancing quadrille. She crisscrosses North America
for thirty years with the circus, experiencing hardships, kidnapping, escapes
and adventure. But when she comes to outweigh her keepers by a factor of
forty--it's hard not to hurt somebody. It's hard not to be "bad.
Samuel Hawley's bio intrigued me because of his love of wild animals, and his having not only been born but also having spent time in East Asia.
Here he tells us this
about himself:
"I
spent most of my working life—the part where I actually earned some money—as a
college and university instructor in East Asia, where I was also born and grew
up. I had long wanted to be a writer, however, after retiring from teaching and
returning to Canada in 2007, I devoted myself to that full-time.
What I’ve
written so far has been pretty eclectic: a history of a cataclysmic war in 16th-century
Asia; two books on late 19th-century Korea; a book on the land speed
record in the 1960s; a biography of a Canadian sprinter and Olympic champion;
and, most recently, my first novel, Bad Elephant Far Stream, based
on the true story of a circus elephant known as Topsy.
On a personal note, I
like to travel and have been to quite a few places, especially in Asia. Right
now I’m looking out the window of my home office here in Kingston, Ontario, at
the first snow of the season, a good four inches and it’s still only November.
And I’m thinking: Next year, we’re going south.
Circus Elephants in the Nineteenth Century
In doing research for Bad
Elephant Far Stream, I collected a great many newspaper reports about
circus elephants that were executed after having attacked or killed someone.
Such creatures were frequently referred to in the press as 'bad elephants' or 'wicked elephants,' hence the title of my book.
Many of these 'bad elephants' were males who had been seized by mutsh
madness and couldn’t control themselves. To give just one example, there was
Romeo, the star attraction with the Adam Forepaugh Circus from 1867 to his
death in 1872.
Here is a selection from a newspaper report written fifteen
years after Romeo’s death recalling his 'treachery' during his troubled
lifetime and the harsh treatment he received. It gives a good idea of the view
that many people harbored of elephants back then—that they were vicious and
would kill you if not kept thoroughly intimidated."
UGLY ELEPHANTS
Thrilling Stories of Their Wickedness in Captivity
The
worst elephant that ever walked in a circus parade in the United States was
Forepaugh’s well-known big elephant Romeo. He was as full of mischief as a
monkey, and as dangerous as a dynamite mine. He was not bad in spells, but
always bad, and his attendants never knew when his big trunk was going to swing
at them with the force of a battering ram.....
Whenever an especially violent fit of temper seized Romeo, it was
necessary to throw him and beat him into submission. The throwing was
accomplished by fastening block and tackle to the chains on his hind legs and
drawing those members up under his big body until he was compelled to let
himself down. Once down, he was chained tight and held, while a dozen men would
surround him and thrash him with poles until he trumpeted ‘enough.’ It
frequently took hours to beat him into submission, and he was often kept lying
on the floor for three or four days before he would give in....
(The
Independent, Calliope, Iowa, Feb. 10, 1887, p. 8.)
Hawley continues:
"Stories
such as this can be hard and even upsetting to read. I therefore don’t dwell on
them in Bad Elephant Far Stream. The mistreatment is there—it was a
fact of life for Topsy and her kind and cannot be avoided—but it is for the
most part toned down.
My goal in writing the book wasn’t to publicize and
trumpet about elephant mistreatment back then, but rather to portray the life
journey of another creature, a nonhuman creature, in a believable and
compelling way."
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Thank you, Samuel Hawley, for sharing
your love and passion for nature’s majestic creatures. While we will never be
able to save them all, there are enough people out there who do care enough
to save as many as they can; innocent creatures caught in our increasingly over-crowded world that would otherwise be lost.
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As an Interesting Aside from me:
Did you know there is an elephant sanctuary right near me in
Arkansas? I was amazed and, of course, had to go and see for myself. It was
wonderful to see how well these animals were loved and cared for, and to listen to their stories (and to see the new baby).
You have got to check out Riddle’s
Elephant and Wildlife Sanctuary:
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