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Chapter One: Elephants Exit the Big Top

When he arrived at Regent’s Park in 1865, the elephant was sickly and underweight. Zoo officials were, to say the least, disappointed in their newest acquisition. Sure, he was quite young. But he was a bull-male. Shouldn’t he have been a little bit bigger? In any case, this runt of an elephant needed a name. Park directors set to thinking. The calf was taken, so they thought, from somewhere inside of the French Sudan, and the cultures there were known for worshipping an idol called Mumbo Jumbo. Why not just shorten this and call him “Jumbo.” Indeed, they decided, this would be a fitting name. It would ultimately prove to be a most ironic choice.

In truth, Mumbo Jumbo was anything but a complimentary christening for an elephant or any other creature. For the word was derogatory and demeaning—originating, not from the African lexicon, but from the European imperialist imagination. Mumbo Jumbo was a “grotesque” idol, an object of unintelligent veneration. Today, the title continues to hold onto its negative ethnocentrism: referring to obscure meaningless talk and writing; nonsense; or an ignorant ritual. Yet the abbreviated version of the term, Jumbo, has not. Its history has actually flowed in the opposite direction. Jumbo has come to mean big and enormous. It connotes success and skill. A jumboism is a preference for largeness. Jumbomania is the idolization of largeness. A century ago, the mere whisper of “Jumbo” could bring about smiles and cheers. Its mention could even cause tears, sorrow, and solemn remembrance. Jumbo remains a word of respect. How did this divergence between the longer and shorter versions of the term happen?

The story begins with the capture of an infant elephant in Eastern (not Western) Africa, some time around 1861–2. After a lengthy and arduous journey across the Sahara Desert, the elephant who would become Jumbo ended up in the markets of Cairo, Egypt. There, he was spotted and purchased by the animal collector Johann Schmidt. Schmidt specialized in the trade of exotic creatures. He bought them from trappers for a low price and sold them to European zoos for a high price. Such were the beginnings for one young, little elephant.

Schmidt dispatched his precious cargo across the Mediterranean Sea. Arriving in continental Europe, the elephant was then transported over-land to Paris. Jumbo’s new home turned out to be none other than the famous Jardin des Plantes. He was soon introduced to his first cage-mate. This was Alice, a young African female elephant. The pair, though, did not remain in the City of Lights for long.

The managers of the French menagerie soon decided that they wanted to add an Indian rhinoceros to the collection. The London zoo happened to have one and was willing to make a trade for a pair of elephants. With the deal agreed upon, Jumbo and Alice were shipped across the English Channel. The two arrived in London in 1865. The male elephant made for a disappointing show. Sickly and thin, he looked as if he could die at any moment. But, over the next few weeks, he made a robust recovery.

For the next seventeen years, Jumbo remained in London. And he grew and grew and grew: in terms of both size and popularity. Reaching a height of eleven and a half feet, the elephant came to weigh-in at a hefty six-and-a-half tons. This sheer size earned him the title of the world’s largest elephant. As for his popularity, everyone knew about Jumbo: from the thousands of yearly visitors who gazed their eyes upon him during his exhibitions to the countless number of schoolchildren who rode on his back in the howdah (or Indian carriage). Even Queen Victoria, Theodore Roosevelt, and P.T. Barnum once made that steep climb onto the broad back of this mighty pachyderm. Jumbo was almost as well known in the Americas as he was in England. Yet, not everything was quite as idyllic as it might seem. For the Regent’s Park Zoo did have a serious problem on its hands—one which it zealously kept secret from the general public.

Jumbo had always been known for his mild temperament. He was friendly to visitors. He was gentle around children. But, as he entered into his teens, his mood and behavior began to change. Jumbo had his own personal handler, a man called Matthew Scott. Scott earned his reputation as a top rank animal trainer years earlier when attempting to trap an angry, adult hippopotamus. The animal had escaped his enclosure and was running amok in the park. When cornered by the keeper, the hippo charged him and took a ferocious snap. Scott only survived this attack with his life and limbs intact by nimbly hopping a fence at the last second. His new job, by contrast, looked at first to be far simpler: taking care of a gentle elephant. By the 1880s, however, Scott found this assignment to be ever more challenging. Jumbo had now entered into adolescence.

Modern zoologists call this developmental period: musth (Hindi word for madness). And they define it as a phase of glandular secretion, higher testosterone-levels, and heighten sexual arousal. In other words, this is a case of over-active and uncontrollable hormones; otherwise known as “heat.” One would have hoped that the fields of natural science would have moved beyond the 17th century and biological determinism. But to no avail. Non-physiological factors—such as captivity, poor labor-conditions, brutal training methods, or the grind of the entertainment industry—do not matter. Intellectual maturity and independence of mind are not considered. Rebellious attitudes and vengeful emotions do not exist. Freedom, or the desire for autonomy, is something that an elephant could never imagine. Agency is a non-concept.

But Jumbo was no scientist, and he certainly did not see himself as a machine. Resistance was his new thought. He flew into terrible rages. He tried repeatedly to escape. He hurled his body against his enclosure. On one occasion, while attempting to ram his fearsome tusks through the iron-doors of his exhibition cage, Jumbo injured himself so severely that surgery was required. Matthew Scott oversaw the procedure and, as usual, was able to calm the giant beast. The keeper’s most successful method to soothe the elephant’s nerves actually involved supplying Jumbo with large quantities of beer. This even became a ritual between the two: drinking time. Once, when the trainer forgot to give Jumbo his share of the nightly brew, he was slammed to the floor by the thirsty giant. Scott never made that mistake again. Yet, there were times—increasing in number as the years wore on—when inebriation did not work to quiet the elephant. It reached a point where Regent Park directors lived in constant fear of what Jumbo might do next. So afraid did they become that the principle director purchased an elephant gun for the protection of the zoo and its employees. If a fight ever got completely out of hand, Jumbo would be shot dead. But just when the situation looked its worse, the London zoo received an amazing stroke of good fortune.

P.T. Barnum’s American circus, promoted as the Greatest Show on Earth, was lacking a center piece—that truly grand figure among other great spectacles. Barnum’s archrival, the Cooper and Bailey’s Allied Show, had its star: the baby Columbia. She was the first elephant ever born in captivity in the United States, and Barnum had made many bids to purchase her. But the Allied Show refused to sell. So Barnum did the next best thing, luring James Bailey to his side, and then went right on searching for another big-time celebrity. He soon found what he was looking for in London. This was Jumbo, a true icon with enough star power to fill his big top every night of the week. Barnum offered the zoo $10,000 for the elephant.

The Regent Park directors were elated. This was a lot of money, and Jumbo had simply grown too dangerous to keep. He had to be sold. The zoo, however, was not prepared for the sheer scale of negative publicity that it would receive regarding this move. The British public was outraged at the idea of shipping Jumbo off to the States. Thousands of children wrote letters to the Queen in protest. Lawsuits were filed to block the sale. Newspapers openly vilified park administrators. Yet, the zoo would not be swayed from its decision.

In the spring of 1882, patrons funneled in to catch one last glimpse of Jumbo and wave good-bye. Crowds of this size had never before been seen at Regents Park, and the zoo itself profited handsomely from this planned farewell, pocketing $40,000 in ticket sales alone. But the final day did come, and the elephant was escorted from his exhibit area and led onto the main grounds. The original plan was to load Jumbo into a large container, which would then be paraded through the London streets. The journey would end at a Thames quay for shipping. This plan, though, proved to be a far more difficult to carry out than first imagined. For Jumbo declined to enter the container.

Matthew Scott, his trainer, tried every technique he could think of to coax the huge elephant into the crate. But each time, Jumbo would approach, stop short, and proceed to lie down on the ground. After that, there was no budging him. As the days passed and embarrassment mounted, the London press declared that this delay was a testament to the fact that the elephant did not want to leave England. Barnum was not amused, and his agent in London grew impatient. The circus’s chief handler was sent for. William Neuman, otherwise known as Elephant Bill, was Barnum’s most notorious and brutal trainer. Instead of offering pachyderms a gallon of pale ale, Elephant Bill opted for a spear-like lance as his primary motivational tool. After his trip across the Atlantic, Neuman set to work straightaway at the reconditioning of Jumbo.

At first, the trainer tried more gentle means of persuasion: verbal commands, pushing, prodding. But none of these were successful. Next, he fitted the elephant with leg chains and pulled on the beast. This method too failed. Jumbo just flatly refused to enter the container. Neuman then pulled out his trusty lance and began using the weapon, but the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals intervened and put a stop to the stabbings. Neuman was furious: both at this level of oversight, which would have never happened in the States, and at his own inability to quell Jumbo’s recalcitrance. It was rumored that the American trainer even threatened to shoot the elephant, if that was the only way to get the animal to Barnum. Ultimately the use of lethal force was not needed, as Scott was finally able to convince Jumbo to walk into the crate. Some speculated that Scott himself was partially responsible for this delay, as he wanted to demonstrate his own self-importance. Nevertheless, after chaining the elephant into place, the trainers found themselves in trouble once again. Jumbo had abruptly changed his mind about the move and began to struggle with all his might, straining the iron chains and quaking the thick bars of the wheeled enclosure. But it was of no use. Not even the world’s largest elephant could break free this time. Jumbo was taken out of Regents Park and transported down the Thames to the coast. From there, the elephant was hoisted onboard the HMS Assyrian Monarch for his long awaited trip across the Atlantic.

Jumbo reached New York harbor on Easter Sunday. With great fanfare, he marched through Midtown Manhattan to Madison Square Garden. The circus season had just kicked off, and he was now a member of P.T. Barnum’s extravaganza. For the next several years, Jumbo would toil for Barnum. He traversed the country, shuffling from town to town. He rode on what must have seemed to be an endless train, being loaded up in a boxcar every night and unloaded every morning.

Jumbo was paired with Tom Thumb, the world’s smallest elephant. Together, the pair of contrasting pachyderms would parade around the arena at the close of afternoon and evening programs. Life in the circus was a grind. The typical season lasted eight months, from March to October. Performances occurred six days a week, twice a day.

By his twenty-fourth year, the greatest star on Earth had been worn out. Whereas Barnum and others had made millions of dollars from this elephant, Jumbo himself had little to show for it. His body was exhausted, his strength sapped, and his vitality drained. Jumbo could barely even lie down. When he did, it was a struggle to return upright. Scott thought privately that Jumbo might not make it through another year on the circuit. And yet, another circus season had just begun. Opening in New York, the Barnum and Bailey big top had already traveled through Pennsylvania, New England, and Maritime Canada. By September it was in Ontario.

There are several versions of events that unfolded on September 15, 1885: the night that Jumbo the elephant was killed. Each begins in a similar manner. The circus was in St. Thomas, a small town located in the southern region of the province. The final performance had just ended. Tom and Jumbo were in the process of being led back to their respective train cars by Matthew Scott. While all three were walking along the tracks, the sound of a fast approaching freight train could be heard in the distance. It is at this point where the stories diverge.

One version has Scott, heroically but unsuccessfully, attempting to lead the elephants to safety by guiding them down a shallow embankment that bordered one side of the tracks. Another has the trainer scrambling off on his own, leaving the pair of elephants to their own devices. In both scenarios, the first to be hit by the locomotive was tiny Tom Thumb. Tossed into the air like a rag-doll, he crashed into a nearby pole and sustained serious, but not life-threatening, injuries. Tom, years later, would be sold to the Central Park Zoo in New York City, where he would spend the rest of his days.

Jumbo was the next to be struck. It happened in one of three ways. The first account has the elephant initially following Scott down the embankment. However, Jumbo got confused or scared by the on-coming train, raced back up onto the tracks, and was hit from behind. Another has Jumbo rushing along the tracks. He was apparently looking for a gap in the line of stationary train-cars, which bordered the opposite side. But he missed the opening, and, when he doubled back, the train smashed into him. A third version has Jumbo escaping from Scott and charging towards the train. He rammed the engine head-on.

As for how Jumbo ultimately died, that also depends on which version of the story you believe. Some said that the world’s most famous elephant was killed almost immediately. While others stated that he suffered for at least three hours before dying. Barnum himself cooked up his own tall tale: claiming that Jumbo died instantly after sacrificing his own life to rescue little Tom Thumb from the speeding train.

In the end, none of these unknowns, discrepancies, or fabrications are important. Jumbo died that autumn day. He spent his life working for the Regents Park Zoo and the Barnum and Bailey Circus.

Before the days of radio, television, or motion pictures, he was one of the first international superstars of the entertainment world. Indeed, over the past two centuries, books have been written about him. Songs have been sung in his honor. Movies have been made depicting him. An Ohio town was once named after him. He has been used to advertise countless consumer products.

To this day, Jumbo remains firmly planted in the English lexicon. That little, sickly elephant—once mocked as Mumbo Jumbo—grew into a large, powerful, and resistant fellow-creature, one still worthy of our respect and veneration.

Mary