Thursday, March 3, 2011

Elephant Executions

Looks fake to me
Two of the most famous elephant executions are Topsy and Mary, both circus elephants.

Topsy was considered too much of a threat after killing three men in separate incidents (including a drunk trainer trying to feed her a lit cigarette); She was electrocuted in 1903. Thomas Edison filmed the event, and it's become quite popular.

Interestingly enough, Topsy was going to be hanged, but it was deemed cruel and inhumane. That apparently didn't occur to the residents of Erwin, Tennessee in 1916.  A crowd of about 2,500 attended the public hanging of Mighty Mary, who had recently killed an inexperienced trainer. It took an industrial crane to lift the five ton elephant, pictured on the right.

13 comments:

Vyper said...

Goddamn, Hanging an elephant. That's crazy and cruel. I'm an animal lover though...

Jonny said...

I've actually read a lot into this case. To add more information:

Back in those days, there were a ton of underground circus's, all claiming to be the best in the world. To not shine a spotlight, when an animal did something bad, they would sell the animal under the table to a new circus, and just rename the animal.

So in the case of these two elephants, they were poorly trained, and so they ended up killing those people. Scary note though, they officially say it was three men but since they usually got renamed, Might Mary was reported to have killed over 30 people under various names.

ExoticBlogger said...

wow that's interesting..

Break said...

Thats interesting but I hate it when they execute innocent animals. Sure the elephant killed three people but those people probably scared the elephant in some way and it reacted in its natural instinct.

rinns said...

Wow.. That's really weird.

meisnick said...

that tops my weird things for thew week

Astronomy Pirate said...

Damn Jonny, really? I was gonna say, killing an elephant for just 3 people seems silly, if it could be trained more. But hearing this, I also remember that elephants are tamed, not domesticated. They are independent creatures from human habits. It's still a shame, and we should respect and not treat as entertaining slaves.

Jessica Thompson said...

Haha you can't be seroius! followed!
alphabetalife.blogspot.com

Alphabeta said...

Hanging an elephant is a bit extreme, no?

Jung said...

This is crazy, what the hell

Moobeat said...

@Jung

My thoughts exactly.

Fix PC Games Admin said...

poor elephant :/

madotsuki said...

Blowing it up with dynamite would have been more humane.

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