That's quite a tale. All the different versions of what happened sure make me wonder about historical "facts" in general. Of course I always have. I do believe it would be hard to kill an elephant with a 32.
PETA would probably nuke the town if something like that happened today. It was just a poor elephant with a toothache and an unhappy calfhood.
That just made me sick. You should have prefaced the post with a little more info.
I AM SO F'ING TIRED OF HUMANITY!!!
This reminds me of how Thomas Edison electrocuted a helpless elephant in an attempt to prove Tesla's (and his backer Westinghouse) AC power was dangerous.
Wow!!! An elephant being held in captivity 1000's of miles from its native land kills a few people employed to care for them and they deserve justice like you or I committed murder?
The carnival like atmosphere of the "execution" is a bit disturbing.
Don't look too far back in history then. There was a "carnival like" atmosphere around human executions even recently.
The last public live execution was in 1936 of Rainey Bethea convicted of raping and mudering a 70 year old woman. 20,000 people attended the hanging in Owensboro, KY.
I wonder how many fewer crimes we would have were we to reinstate live public executions.
Most prisons are located in rural communities. Imagine the potential economic boom it would be to the small towns around these prisons were they to have the business of 20,000 people a time or two per year.
Imagine the potential economic boom it would be to the small towns around these prisons were they to have the business of 20,000 people a time or two per year.
I wouldn't go so much to that extreme, but I think we need to reintroduce the time tested attributes of shame and public humiliation back into our penal system.
"...I think we need to reintroduce the time tested attributes of shame and public humiliation back into our penal system."
Most of those people have no shame and probably can't be humiliated.
A lot needs to be changed about the penal system... I think the time tested attributes of the 'work farm' needs to be reintroduced where prisoners grow their own food and prisons become profit centers for the state. Done properly, it would be in everyones best interest to get as many criminals in prison as possible.
Nothing cruel or unusual about having to work for a living.
Most of those people have no shame and probably can't be humiliated.
Everyone can feel shame. One just has to be creative.
In our efforts to insulate our children from the sting of failure and embarrassment so that their fragile self image isn't fractured, we are creating two modes of individual: The super wimp and the super criminal.
There are those who lack the ability to deal with ANY adversarial situation. There are inversely those who understand that there are those lack the ability to deal with any situation and so therefore prey on those individuals without remorse or concern.
I have always said that they should sterilize anyone who gets a 5 year or longer sentence.
For a lot of families (if you can call them that) prison is a way of life. Preventing them from continuing the cycle is the only way we stop the madness.
BTW this made me drag out my pristine laserdisc of Running Man. Good stuff.
During the time of the Napoleonic Wars. A French ship was wrecked just of the coast of the headland of Old Hartlepool.
The only survivor to be washed ashore was a small monkey dressed in a French sailors uniform. The wretched creature had apparently been used for entertainment by the crew of the unfortunate ship.
The people of Hartlepool at the time were largely simple fishing folk and had (probably) never seen a monkey and so they assumed it was a French spy, they promptly took it away for questioning. Unfortunately (for itself) the monkey could neither speak nor understand English and could only gibber agitatedly, which only served to further persuade the locals to the identity of the prisoner as they took this gibbering to be French! Finally the monkey was put on trial, found guilty of spying and of course sentenced to death by hanging. The monkey was finally hung on the fish sands a small stretch of beach below the ancient town wall.
To this day people from there are called Monkeyhangers, & that's the name of the local Rugby club too.