The Great Goober Crisis

The elephants of the Bertram Mills circus in London were in a painful fix with fibrositis--thickening of the trunk muscles. A correspondent cabled the news to the U.S. and added a guess. The elephants' affliction, he reported, was doubtless due to lack of peanuts.

That did it. Last week London heard a disturbing rumor that generous Americans and Canadians (possibly influenced by an American jingle circa 1890)* were sending whole shiploads of peanuts. The circus managers had several anxious days. There would surely be a high howl in Britain over giving valuable food to animals when British children could use it; and there would surely be a shrill cry from U.S. zoophilists if peanuts intended for elephants were diverted.

There were a couple of other posers. Britons in general do not like peanuts. And, said a circus man, "Our elephants have never seen a peanut in their lives; British people feed buns to elephants. If we give them rich, oily peanuts, they'll probably get sick."

Fortunately the rumor, like the original report, was an exaggeration. Only a few Americans, including T. F. Bridgers, a North Carolina goober grower who sent a 100-pound sack, had responded with small shipments. Meantime the elephants' trunks were responding nicely to buns and radio therapy.

* The man who has plenty of good peanuts, And giveth his neighbor none, He shan't have any of my peanuts When his peanuts are gone. . . . Ok, won't that be joyful, joyful, joyful, Oh, that will be joyful, when his peanuts are gone. There were many variations on the same theme, e.g.: When his John Wanamaker's endurable, reversible, sit-on-'em and mash 'em, patent restorable, operatic plug hats are gone.

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