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In reply to the discussion: Post a true but little known fact about someone famous, living or dead -- Part 10 [View all]jmowreader
(50,561 posts)An elephant WAS electrocuted but it wasn't because of Edison's evil intent.
Reality time.
Topsy was the "house elephant" of Coney Island's Luna Park. They got her from Forepaugh Circus, who sold her because she killed a spectator. They eventually realized the elephant was too dangerous to deal with and made plans to euthanize her. Their original idea was to hang the elephant in a public spectacle, and charge admission. The New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals made two objections: that it was wrong to turn the death of an animal into a public spectacle, and that they didn't think you even could hang an elephant to death. (Thirteen years later, the town of Erwin, Tenn., hanged an elephant from a railway crane. The town is still taking shit from tourists over that one.) Luna Park's Plan B: wrap a rope connected to an overhead steel framework around her neck, feed Topsy a pound of cyanide secreted in carrots, then electrocute her by connecting her feet to the city electric grid. Strangely enough, the SPCA thought this was just fine.