In the late 1800s, animosity between Edison, a spokesman for direct current (DC), and the George Westinghouse-Tesla alliance in favor of alternating current (AC) became known as the ‘current war’. . Edison’s company argued that DC was good for commercial use. Westinghouse, on the other hand, spread the word that AC was good. However, in 1892, Edison’s company merged with the Thomson-Houston Company to support AC, and Edison was expelled from the company, ending the famous “electric war”. Although the final victory was with Tesla, Edison was quite successful in brushing him off
With more than a thousand patents, Edison filled the pages of history with the reputation of being the best inventor in the world, and the more talented Nikola Tesla was overlooked. Edison did everything in his power to prevent Tesla from going down in history. It was for this campaign that Edison shocked and killed an elephant named Topsy.
(Nikola Tesla was an employee of Edison’s company. He could not bear the humiliation of Edison and started his own company …)
Now to the elephant story …..
Topsy was born in 1875 in Southeast Asia. As a baby, she was smuggled into the United States. There she was sold to the Forepaugh Circus Company. Topsy was falsely labeled “the first Asian elephant born in the United States.” She was a star in circus shows. But after the show, Topsy was subjected to severe torture. At the time, there were no laws governing the handling of pets. The trainers applied all sorts of weapons made of iron on the poor tops.
But after years of persecution, she responded. Topsy, an Asian girl, took revenge by taking the lives of three coaches. She was outraged when one of them sniffed Topsy’s trunk with a cigarette. The task of “stopping” her then landed on the more rugged James Fielding Blount. James was even worse. He began to harass Topsy more and more. One night in 1902, James stopped drinking and tried unsuccessfully to get her drunk. When he refused, he beat Topsy until dawn. But in the end she responded. She overcame all her anger by trampling James on the ground.
In the end, the circus company decided to sell the killer elephant. Topsy was purchased by Paul Boynton, operator of the Sea Lion Amusement Park on Coney Island. But she was later handed over to Luna Parks on the same island. Authorities decided to use Topsy for construction work because the park was not yet complete. A series of horrific tortures awaited her there. They used her to push down huge iron structures and bend wires. Topsy was coached by the coaches with the same wires she had removed. ” When the brutality crossed the border, a trainer was called by the police and scolded. The arrested coach, Whitey Ault, was worse than the old James. When the police arrested the drunken man and took him to the station, Topsy also tried to enter the station, causing laughter and panic among the people. Anyway, with that incident, White’s work was gone. In fact, there is no one to “look” at Topsy.
The story of a female named Topsy1
Authorities are considering how to deal with the “criminal” elephant. Topsy, who has already earned a “bad name”, is guaranteed to be bought again. Another problem was that no one was willing to train her. That means she should no longer just be fed. The park owners were not ready for it. In the end they came to a decision. Kill Topsy. They devised several ways to kill an animal that was ten feet tall and weighed three tons. There were many suggestions, such as guns, poison, hanging, and being strangled with metal rods. The intervention of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals prevented many “brutal” practices. Finally someone said “good” method. Shock and kill Topsy! Electric chairs that kill humans were in vogue then. Thus, they entrusted the task to a few people who were well versed in “electricity”. Finally, Sunday, January 4, 1903, was decided as Topsy’s last day.
Thousands turned out to watch the execution, but only about a hundred entered the compound. Many journalists and photographers came to see this rare event. Some jumped over fences and walls and reached the scene.
The Edison Electric Illuminating Company of Brooklyn, led by electrician P. D. Sharkey, was tasked with killing the elephant. They worked all night and drew a special line from the nearest local power station. Thus the time came. Park officials, who did not have much faith in the shock technique, gave Topsy 460 grams of cyanide-mixed carrots to eat. But she refused to eat it all. Topsy was taken to the place where the execution was to take place. She was tied with a steel rope on a specially prepared platform. The rope could be tightened with the help of a steam engine. The system was designed to tie the wires around the neck and kill them if they did not die of shock. The electricians connected the right front and left legs of the top to the power lines. The plan was to get the current all over the body.
The steam engine began to sound. The knots began to tighten. Smoke rose from the platform. The chief electrician raised his hand amidst the noise of the people. 6,600 volts of electricity flowed into Topsy’s body. Thus, after years of miserable life, Topsy, an Asian girl, fell to the ground in the United States. To make sure he was dead, he put a rope around the neck of the fallen top for another ten minutes. At last that life came to an end
The Edison film company was filming all these scenes. It became world famous as the world’s first live death video. Topsy’s death video, Electrocuting an Elephant, was the main item in the kinetoscopes, the early film screening medium.
Recent Comments