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# Byron's 1813 visit to Chunee the elephant and the animal's killing in 1826
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/14-noiabria-1813-goda-bairon-pobyval-v-gostiakh-u-znamenitogo-v-londone-slona-po-klichke-chuni/
- Published: 2017-11-14T18:55:07.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T19:06:10.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Archive, London, Observations, Mores, Nature

On 14 November 1813 Byron paid a visit to Chunee, London's celebrated elephant. The seven-tonne giant was the star of the menagerie at Exeter Change. The elephant would take off visitors' hats, accept a coin and hand it back, and open doors. Byron was delighted by the animal's accomplishments and even wrote that he would be glad to see this elephant as his butler.

The darling of the townsfolk delighted the public for many years, until in 1826 he fell seriously ill: a broken tusk and toothache changed Chunee's character, making him nervous and aggressive. During one of his walks he crushed a keeper to death, and, well, what would you think, it was decided to kill the elephant.

Since the animal refused to eat the poison offered to him, the owner of the menagerie summoned soldiers, while the keeper deceived Chunee and asked him to kneel, to make the task easier for his killers. A hundred and fifty musket balls were fired into Chunee, yet even that did not kill the giant. They finished him off with a harpoon. The newspapers of those days describe how half the menagerie floor was covered in blood, and the sounds of the elephant's agony drowned out the noise of the shots.

Chunee's horrifying death shook London. But even after death the poor creature was not left in peace: anyone who wished could attend, for a fee, a show in which medical students dismembered the elephant's carcass.

What frightens most in this story is the thought that society used to be savage, and that such incidents were regarded as the norm. That is not so at all. Decent people, in the nineteenth century and in earlier times, invariably opposed violence and cruelty towards animals. The difference is that the law did not forbid such acts, and resisting them was almost impossible. And riffraff need only be given free rein: licence greatly slackens the moral fibre and lets the most repulsive vices out of their closets.

Victorian London permitted the most brutal killing of a universal friend who had for over 15 years brought joy to the city, but on the other side there were people who expressed decisive indignation at the tormenting of the beast and, moreover, secured the demolition of the menagerie within a couple of years, so that animals were no longer put on show for entertainment at the price of daily torments. Yet, startlingly, the press of those same years also mentions another elephant being poisoned with prussic acid for the sake of an experiment: to find out how much of the substance was needed to kill him.

Good Lord, how ugly mankind is