January 4 is the anniversary of the electrocution by Thomas Edison of Topsy, the elephant we must never forget. We know more about how her life ended than we do about how it began. Newspaper reports on her death in 1903 claim she was 28. This means she was probably caught in India, Sri Lanka, Indochina or Indonesia in the mid 1870s. She was brought to the United States and became part of the touring Forepaugh Circus.
It’s as true today as it was more than 100 years ago: Captive wild animals don’t perform stupid tricks, dress up in gaudy clothes and parade around to vulgar music because they want to. They are forced to perform by trainers with whips and bull hooks. The romantic glamour of the circus hides the power and control of cruel animal-training and management techniques.
But for the most part, circus life for elephants meant boredom, confinement and discipline. There was no veterinary care. They subsisted on unhealthy diets. There was a total lack of understanding of their psychological and behavioural needs. They weren’t allowed to exercise and socialize with their own kind except for when they performed. Everyone knew elephants were dangerous, which is probably why people taunted them and persisted in treating them cruelly. So, elephants attacked when they felt threatened or were provoked. Male or bull elephants were especially dangerous during musth. This is a periodic condition when testosterone production is at its greatest. The bull’s innate desire is to find a cow elephant in heat and mate. In Topsy’s time, elephant keepers were ignorant of musth and what it meant for bull elephants. To them, the elephant had become “ugly,” which meant he was dangerous and many were consequently killed. The names of elephants were often changed when they were sold to another circus after they had killed someone.
In 1902 a stupid and tragic incident led Topsy to take one more step toward her own death. The Forepaugh Circus was in Brooklyn. A drunken man, J.F. Blount, approached Topsy with a glass of whisky and a lit cigarette. Trainers frequently gave alcohol to elephants. It relaxed them. But they feared it on someone’s breath. It invariably meant trouble. Blount dropped the lit cigarette onto Topsy’s tongue. The trainer shouted a warning to Blount, who boasted “Don’t you worry about me, brother, I know what I’m doing.” According to The Commercial Advertiser, Topsy “picked him [Blount] up with her trunk and dashed him to the ground, killing him instantly.”
Topsy eventually ended up at Luna Park, a Coney Island amusement park in Brooklyn, NY, where she worked with her keeper, Frederick Ault. He was a drunkard and Topsy behaved more like the wild animal she was, which could only end up in tears — elephant tears.
She was electrocuted by Edison to demonstrate the power of electricity in what was known as the “Battle of the Currents.” To expedite her electrocution she was fed carrots laced with 460 grams of potassium cyanide. With 1,500 spectators who each paid 10 cents to watch, Topsy was electrocuted on January 4, 1903. It took 10 seconds for the 6,600 volts of electricity to kill her.
We must never forget Topsy. Every time we plug something into an electrical outlet we must remember her and her tragic life and cruel death.
