by Michael Daly
In truth, Romeo’s sometimes murderous disposition was almost certainly a result of the brutality he suffered at the hands of his successive keepers. The prevailing philosophy among American trainers was based on fear and pain. The trainers generally operated with the belief that elephants needed to be physically intimidated from the start and mercilessly punished if they failed to obey, beaten without stop until they gave a cry of surrender. Orders often were accompanied by a jab with the sharp point of an ankus, popularly known as an elephant hook or bull hook, a wood-handled metal crook with a spike on the end. Elephants supposedly did not really feel it because their hide was so thick, even though their constant nuzzling and stroking of each other would seem proof of their skin’s sensitivity.
A similar approach was taken to the children who were “adopted” by early circuses from what the New York Times described as “almshouses [and] degraded parents, in whom the love of rum had extinguished all sparks of parental affection, and who would be consoled by a few dollars for the loss of their too-often unwelcome urchins.” The paper reported that one apprentice recalled he “was seldom spoken to without both an oath and a blow, and that the lithe lash of the heavy wagon-whip cracked about his ears all day, from the time it woke him from his sleep in the all-too-early morning to the hour it sent him tingling and revengeful to his wretched bunk at night.” Another former circus child recalled “nothing but blows, oaths and kicks from morning till night, to which was added also no inconsiderable amount of wholesome starvation.”
Elephants cost considerably more than a child to acquire, but oftentimes fared even worse because their size convinced their abusers that they could take more and needed more to get the intended message. The result with Romeo (not to be confused with a different elephant of the same name who arrived from India in 1832) was that he killed another keeper in Missouri and yet another in Florida. He was termed “the most dangerous animal of its kind” and “the worst elephant in America.”
A press agent might have tried to turn that fearsome reputation to financial advantage had the public found danger to be part of an elephant’s appeal, as it did with the snarling lions and tigers. But elephants were viewed as wise, above the fray, possessing an actual overview, a manifestation of a utopian benevolence such as had made the Happy Family exhibit at the Barnum Museum such a success.
“It is astonishing to think how docile these huge creatures are, when it is remembered that but a brief time since they were running wild in the jungle,” Gleason’s Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion remarked.
Lions were considered only to be acting in accordance with their nature when they mauled to death three members of a circus band that had been positioned atop the cage when its roof collapsed. An elephant who turned violent was considered an aberration, a rogue, bad, regardless of what may have triggered the rage. There were no bad cats, but there were bad elephants just as there were bad people.
The badness was assumed to originate in the captive rather than in the captors. Such “ugly” elephants were said to “deserve” punishment, even more of the brutality that had given rise to the behavior in the first place. They were thought to need to have the badness beaten out of them, to be taught a lesson, to be completely subjugated.
The philosophy sometimes produced the desired result in the short term, but it ultimately succeeded only in making a “bad” elephant worse, an even uglier reflection of the abuser. His reputation aside, Romeo seemed sufficiently subdued at the time of the Hippodrome’s closing that a circus called the Mabie Menagerie and Show did not hesitate to buy him. He did apparently become more troublesome as the show hit the road and the owners sent for a tall, raw-boned trainer from Ohio who had a growing reputation for being able to handle even the most difficult elephants.
“When all other means failed with elephants, there was but one thing to do, ‘Send for Craven,’” noted circus chronicler C. G. Startevent.
Stewart Craven had been sixteen years old in 1849, when Isaac Van Amburgh’s menagerie performed near his Ohio home. Van Amburgh had become famous for daring to step into a cage with an array of big cats, including a lion, a tiger, and a leopard. He was forthright about his methods, saying, “They believe I have the power to tear every one of them to pieces if they do not act as I say. I tell them so and have frequently enforced it with a crowbar.” He answered any fainthearted critics by citing the Bible, specifically, Genesis 1:26: “And God said, let us make mankind in our image and likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, all the cattle, all the earth, and all the creatures that crawl on the earth.” He reinforced the biblical justification by dressing in a toga and sandals as he imagined King David had during his encounter with the lion. His signature stunt was having the lion lie down with the lamb as in the Book of Isaiah and even having a nine-year-old come in as a stand-in as the little child who shall lead them.
Young Craven joined the show as it continued on and proved able to juggle while he rode on the tusks of the elephant Tippo Saib, appearing as an authentic marvel in such venues as Niblo’s Garden in New York, where Barnum had first exhibited Joice Heth. His fellow trainers were more impressed to see him ride standing atop a moving elephant, for they knew that the loose skin there accorded what one protégé termed “footing about as secure as water.” They were no doubt doubly amazed when he went up on one foot and just kept riding along, a figure of absolute self-assurance, triumphant with the elephant rather than over it. He clearly had an innate sense of balance, but he just as clearly had developed a sense of how an elephant would move from instant to instant. Here seemed to be not so much subjugation as comprehension.
Craven further demonstrated and developed his abilities as he trained the elephants Anthony and Cleopatra for an extended appearance at the Broadway Theater in New York. He now received the most serious challenge of his burgeoning career when the Mabie show, the current owner of Romeo, sent for him to come be its head elephant trainer.
The show was touring the South and Craven caught up with it in Jackson, Mississippi. He entered the tent as a paying customer.
“That was the first time I saw Romeo,” Craven would recall. “I walked past the elephants and as soon as Romeo saw me he spotted me. He knew at once I was an elephant man. He threw up his head and then smelt me all over. I paid no attention to him, but walked on. Instead of turning to the next person and looking for apples, Romeo followed me as far as his chain would let him and kept his head turned toward me until I left the tent.”
Craven did not announce himself to the manager until the next day, after he had followed the show to the town of Raymond.
“Before this, I wanted to keep incognito and take a look at the elephants,” Craven said. “The man who had the elephants before was . . . a low, drunken brute. When he heard that I was to replace him, he was terribly mad.”
The man stormed off and Craven took charge.
“As soon as I saw the elephants, I saw something was wrong. The man had gone away without fastening Romeo securely. The chain around his leg was only fastened to a light stake.”
Craven ducked under the rope that had been stretched as a perimeter to keep back passersby. Craven began by petting Romeo, seeking to make a connection with the already notorious elephant before moving to secure the chain. Romeo made clear that he preferred not to be bothered.
“He took me up with his trunk and set me gently outside the rope.”
The question of the chain remained and Craven again ducked under the rope.
“This time, he picked me up and threw me at least twenty feet, and if he could have followed me he surely would have killed me.”
The chain held for the moment, but that could have changed in a deadly instant as Romeo strained after this elephant man. Craven sought to drive Romeo back, his immediate and reflexive goal now not to comprehend but to subdue, as if he were just any other tr
ainer.
“Then he began to fight me.”
Craven had not yet learned to consider the source of the fury. He simply responded in the usual way, answering force with force.
“We got the other elephants out of the road and began to beat Romeo with clubs and poles. He had about twenty-five feet of chain, and, of course, we could not get very near him. He rushed after us as far as his chain would let him, and we kept out of his road, punching him with poles all the time. Sometimes he got hold of the clubs we threw at him and then we all stampeded. He threw those clubs back with force enough to cut a man in two. We fought him all night, but could make no headway at all, except to aggravate him.”
With the dawn came an urgency.
“The show moved on, and I was bound to follow with Romeo.”
Craven and his assistants managed to fasten the chain to the three other elephants.
“Then we let them loose. I was already on horseback and led the way. As soon as Romeo saw me, he came for me, pulling the other elephants with him. He kept me going at a lively pace.”
Craven headed into a patch of woods, with Romeo coming right after him. The assistants fastened a second chain to the one on Romeo and secured that to a tree. They then used the other elephants to pull, according Romeo less and less slack.
“By this means, we got Romeo’s leg so held that he could not move it an inch. He was fighting as well as he could, however, all the time.”
They set nooses on the ground and yanked them tight when Romeo stepped into them during his continuing struggles.
“Then we had him by all four legs.”
They now used the other elephants to pull Romeo’s legs out from under him, chancing upon a method that had been used in India for centuries and would become known as “taking” an elephant.
“And down he went.”
Craven and the men again set upon him with the clubs.
“He fought and fought and gouged a big hole in the ground with his head.”
Finally there came the sound Craven was waiting to hear.
“He soon gave up and halloed enough. When you hear an elephant cry that way, you know he’s subdued. It’s a very peculiar cry, and once you hear it you know it again. It’s just like a man that’s whipped.”
He apparently meant a man who has reached his limit, though the whipping of slaves was common enough in the Southern states where the show was touring. He distinguished himself to some degree from other trainers, and from slave overseers, by not administering one blow more than he considered necessary. Enough was indeed enough, at least as he figured it at that time.
“Well, Romeo halloed, and just as soon as we could get the chains off, he was free. But he was so exhausted that he could not get up, and we had to help him. We fastened a chain around his head and made the other elephants pull him to his feet, and he was as docile as a lamb. We had no more trouble with him for a year afterward.”
The show was in Cotton Gin, Texas, when Romeo expressed his particular displeasure with an assistant whom Craven himself described as “an ignorant fellow.” Romeo knocked the assistant through a fence and the man escaped serious injury only by zigzagging around the posts. The assistant sought his revenge after Romeo was tied up, but the elephant seemed determined not to give him any satisfaction.
“He beat that elephant until [Romeo] was badly used up, but [Romeo] would not give in. It is remarkable what ill will Romeo had for that fellow. . . . The man I’m talking about would not go near the elephant after that and that was the wisest thing he ever did in his life, for Romeo would surely have killed him at the first chance. . . . Once an elephant gets spite against a man, he never forgets it.”
Indelible in Craven’s own memory was an occurrence while the show was making a winter visit to Chicago. Craven had gone out for the evening when Romeo turned on one of his keepers, knocking the man down. The keeper managed to flee outside and Romeo proceeded to wreck the interior of the building where he and a new elephant renamed Juliet were quartered.
“After doing as much damage as he could inside, he broke down the doors and marched into the streets of Chicago.”
Juliet followed. The circus began an urgent search for Craven.
“They had at least fifty people rushing around town hunting for me. In the meantime, Romeo was causing the greatest excitement. A large crowd had collected and the elephant was rushing them through the streets.”
The gawkers managed to escape injury by scampering up onto the boarded sidewalks, which were elevated eighteen inches above the street.
“The elephant was afraid to get on the boards. As soon as everybody appeared on the streets, however, Romeo went for them and drove them to the sidewalks. In this way he kept the streets clear.”
The small army of frantic searchers was unable to find Craven, who was at the theater.
“I got back to the hotel around eleven o’clock and then heard about Romeo and went to look for him. I first found Juliet—she had got out, too—and got her home without any trouble. Then I went for Romeo.”
The continuing uproar made Romeo easy to find. Craven studied the elephant for a moment before calling out his name.
“He threw up his head and didn’t know where the sound came from. I called again and then he saw me. I cried, ‘Come here!’”
Come he did.
“He came as a flash of lightning and as he came I went.”
Craven dashed into the building where the elephants were being quartered and ducked into a dressing room just inside the entrance, which was elevated like the sidewalks, only higher.
“Old Romeo came in and stood in the entrance and there he stayed looking for me. He was frantic, and if he could have got me would have killed me sure.”
Craven contrived to make Romeo literally chill.
“I got around the building and opened all the windows and doors, so as to make it as cool as possible—it was bitter weather—and thus freeze Romeo into going into his stall. But the fever was on him bad and that wouldn’t work.”
Craven ducked back into the elevated dressing room and sought to cool the situation more figuratively.
“I fooled around making as much noise as possible, but appearing to be unconcerned. . . . After a while, I handed an ear of corn to him from the dressing room, and he put it in his mouth, but would not eat.”
Craven waited for a time and casually made another offering.
“At last he did eat a piece of bread and then I spoke to him. I told him to go into his stall. He hesitated a minute and then walked in. I knew he was all right and I followed and soon had the chain around his foot.”
The crisis was resolved without Craven inflicting even a single blow.
“And that was the end of that trouble.”
The show proceeded on to its winter quarters in Delvan, Wisconsin. The season done, Craven returned to Chicago, after having a financial disagreement with the parsimonious management. He arrived to find three urgent telegrams awaiting, asking him to return as quickly as possible. The true urgency of the situation became clear after he telegraphed back, demanding considerable remuneration.
“I got an answer right away accepting my terms and I went. It appears that as soon as Romeo found I had gone he got frantic and no one would go near him. He was all right when he saw me and stayed all right until spring.”
Romeo and Juliet were lodged in an extension to the barn. The warming weather brought a group of curious women who asked to see the elephants drink. Craven obliged by setting Romeo and Juliet loose. The elephants stepped from the shadows into the sunshine.
“As soon as Romeo got into the light I saw he had a spell on.”
The spell was not the result of any immediate provocation and was most likely a condition that had not afflicted The Elephant or Old Bet or Lil Bet or any
other females. The condition is musth, from the Persian word mast, meaning intoxicated, which aptly describes this state of hormonal and emotional upheaval that periodically visits male elephants, generally between the ages of sixteen and sixty, most often in the winter, for periods ranging from two weeks to five months, peaking for a period of forty-five to sixty days. The onset is often signaled by spreading of the ears and widening of the eyes, which begin to roll and glare. The temporal glands roughly midway between the eye and the ear swell and are thought to cause maddening pain as they press upon the eyes. Ducts at the bottom edges of the glands begin to ooze a dark, gooey substance that seeps down toward the mouth. Urine runs along the inside of the rear legs. The level of testosterone in the blood spikes by as much as sixty times and the elephant becomes wildly aggressive.
The exact purpose of musth remains a mystery, perhaps because it may not serve any current purpose. Some scientists believe it is an evolutionary vestige dating back to the time of woolly mammoths, whose herds are thought to have included grown males. Musth among the mammoths could have served to signal a readiness to contest other males for dominance and demonstrate to females the robustness of a suitable mate.
The matriarchy of the elephant herd may have been an instance of social evolution outpacing the biological. One theory proposes that musth among elephants does function at least partly to prevent inbreeding by making its subject so wildly aggressive as to take on even dominant males who might otherwise monopolize the available and willing females. Adherents of this view caution that being in musth is not the male equivalent of being in estrus, or heat. The bulls so affected are often tumescent but do not evidence a heightened sex drive so much as a general fury.
At the approach of a male in musth, the adult females of a herd have been observed forming a protective circle. Musth may, if nothing else, confirm the wisdom of exiling grown males. Craven certainly knew what to do with his visitors when he saw Romeo in this condition.
“I can tell you, I got those ladies out of sight as quick as they could go. Juliet went to the trough and drank, but Romeo stood still, shaking his head. I went within a half dozen steps of him and said, ‘Romeo, come here.’ And he did come.”
