A Hungry Crowd

I must say that I have never before experienced perfectly respectable and peacful neighbours become wild and aggressive.

Yesterday I witnessed a large crowd pressing a police officer, who seemed completely overstrained by the situation, to shoot an Elephant.

The Elephant had been rioting about in the village and had even killed a man because it had gone "must". Elephants sometimes do that but they actually are peaceful animals and really I think most of the people in the crowd new this but they probably didn't listen to their concience, which would have surely forbidden to kill a peaceful animal.

I pitied the creature, but what could I have done against a rioting mass of hungry people? Nothing. Yes, I suppose this was the main reason for all the trouble: people, living under these conditions we have to endure because of those British agents, are hungry! They just could not hold it any longer and there was a good reason for shooting the Elephant , too because it had gone "must".

The funny thing, in my opinion, about all this is, that the crowd was a lot wilder in chasing that poor police officer than the Elephant had ever been.

I am also disappointed in the officer. He should have resisted, but, of course one must say, he didn't have the courage. The crowd would have probably taken thet rifle away from him by force and done the job itself any way but not being able to fight for justice, even for animals, is, in my opinion, gutless.