Topsy the Elephant and Edison the Executioner

Ever heard that old kid’s song, “Nellie the Elephant?”  No, I hadn’t either until I had my own children and a very wonderful British nanny who brought over a cassette one day with this song front and center.  My kids loved it, and so did I.

 
I was reminded of this song this morning as I listened to the news. I hate to sound hackneyed, but I heard this on NPR:”Word of Mouth” with Tina Brown. If you’ve never heard of or followed this particular segment, you ought to give it a listen; Brown points up articles and books that she thinks are worth your time. Today’s segment is no exception. One of Brown’s recommended reads is Michael Daly’s new book, Topsy: The Startling Story of the Crooked Tail Elephant, P.T. Barnum, and the American Wizard, Thomas Edison.

This story shocked, saddened–and only reinforced what I already knew. Having read Executioner’s Current: Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, and the Invention of the Electric Chair by Richard Moran and seen an exhibition on the development of the electric chair, I already knew that Edison was a ruthless, vindictive, cruel opportunist, without a shred of compassion.  That guy roasted dogs, cats, a horse . . . all to discredit Westinghouse and scare people into believing that AC was much more dangerous than the DC he advocated.  (By the way, he later admitted he’d known the truth all along.)  In fact, Westinghouse refused to sell AC generators to New York prison authorities to be used in electrocution; Edison ran out and bought three generators that he then delivered, proposing that death by electric chair be called “Westinghousing.”  

There’s much more to that story and Moran’s book is a great eye-opener, but if you lack the time and patience, then check out this excellent post on the subject. But you ought to check out Moran’s book–and I will certainly be reading Daly’s.  As Tina Brown points out, Edison’s rivalry with Westinghouse was done by the time Edison offered to electrocute Topsy for the cameras: a truly gruesome bit of footage you can watch today (and, yes, all that smoke is from the current scorching her feet–and they still strangled the elephant just to make sure she was truly dead).

As someone who’s read about this really very unpleasant, vengeful, fairly sadistic guy, I’m not a bit surprised about how keen Edison was to fry this poor elephant–just as I’m not surprised to learn that the elephant was unmercifully taunted and tortured by her trainers.  (The London Zoo’s Jumbo wasn’t exactly tortured, but he got pretty fed up with toting around kiddies–and he, too, was sold to Barnum in 1881, almost 20 years before ol’ P.T. agreed to let Edison fry Topsy. Only four years later in 1885, Jumbo died after being hit by a locomotive that had derailed after also hitting and killing a younger elephant, Tom Thumb. Of course, Barnum embellished, saying that Jumbo had tried to save Tom Thumb, but that’s only so much hooey that witnesses disputed.)

Zoos aren’t necessarily evil. The animal rights movement has come a long way. But circuses were very cruel and vicious places and if you doubt that, just go to a state fair and watch how farmers whack and smack and punch pigs to get them to move into the ring, or read any story about how animals are mistreated and tortured at processing facilities/killing centers or at auctions. That’s when you realize that we need books like Daly’s to highlight our capacity for mindless sadism because past is prologue.  So I’ll be reading this book because, really, more times than not, I am reminded that we can be a very depressing species indeed.