The other day Alan Friswell, the bloke who made the CFZ Feegee Mermaid and also the guy responsible for some of the most elegantly macabre bloggo postings, wrote me an email. He had an idea for a new series for the bloggo. Quite simply he has an enormous collection of macabre, fortean, odd and disturbing magazine and newspaper articles, and he proposed to post them up on the bloggo.
Alan Writes: "Yes! Welcome to Friswell's Freaky Features! An ongoing spot on the CFZ blog page where you will encounter the fun, the freaky, the frightening and on occasion, the downright horrifying. Many of these items are from almost forgotten archives and no doubt should, in many cases, have stayed forgotten. But no chance of that on this site! So be prepared to be amazed by the bizarre manifestations of nature, the abberations of the natural world and the complete (on occasion) mind-bending insanity of collective humanity. Read on...."
What a smashing idea, we thought, and so with a burst of alliteration that will - I hope - make Dr Shuker proud of me, here we go.
I think that we all have suspicions about that way that animals are treated when they are being 'trained' for circuses, exhibitions and the entertainment industry in general but when we see the way it's done in its full, cold-blooded reality, it can inspire us to think very dark thoughts about our own species....
Modern Mechanics, July, 1931
One of the things that has always troubled me is the keeping of elephants in captivity. I just don't think they belong there, especially in colder and temperate climates. They are meant to be wandering over vast expanses, consuming large amounts of food, swimming in the water, wallowing in the mud, and living together as a closely bonded family unit. They are not meant to be chained and yanked and transported from one freezing cold place to another to perform as circus clowns for our amusement.
ReplyDeleteNot only that, elephants are known to go off on on their handlers. It is not just bulls in musth. There are countless cases of circus elephants going on rampages. And I think that this happens because they are not meant to be a circus animal or in captivity at all. Period.