When not [meeting](https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryMemes/s/DkcW3nLtPm) Savanna Dutch, Theodore Roosevelt was hunting. On the way to camp, Roosevelt, his son Kermit, and guide Sir Alfred spotted fresh signs of lions and detoured toward a thicket to flush out any big cats hiding there:
“We rode up to it and shouted loudly. The response was immediate, in the shape of loud gruntings, and crashings through the thick brush. We were off our horses in an instant, I throwing the reins over the head of mine; and without delay the good old fellow began placidly grazing, quite unmoved by the ominous sounds immediately in front. I sprang to one side; and for a second or two we waited, uncertain whether we should see the lions charging out ten yards distant, or running away. Fortunately, they adopted the latter course. Right in front of me, thirty yards off, there appeared, from behind the bushes which had first screened him from my eyes, the tawny, galloping form of a big, maneless lion. Crack! the Winchester spoke; and as the soft-nosed bullet ploughed forward through his flank the lion swerved so that I missed him with the second shot; but my third bullet went through the spine and forward into his chest. Down he came, sixty yards off, his hind quarters dragging, his head up, his ears back, his jaws open and lips drawn up in a prodigious snarl, as he endeavored to turn to face us. His back was broken; but of this we could not at the moment be sure, and if it had been merely grazed, he might have recovered, and then, even though dying, his charge might have done mischief. So Kermit, Sir Alfred, and I fired, almost together, into his chest. His head sank, and he died.”
(Mind you, only Kermit & Theodore were officially hunting, so even the guide jumping into the fray highlighted the surprise).
Roosevelt killed eight other lions, eight elephants, thirteen rhinoceroses, seven hippopotamuses, twenty zebra, seven giraffes, six buffalo (the real thing, not the bison of North America), and scores of lesser mammals, as well as dozens of birds, from ostriches (two) and great bustards (four) down to the odd duck and songbird, and three pythons. The quirks of animal behavior caused Roosevelt to reflect on animal emotions, which in turn caused him to reflect on human emo-tions. Roosevelt knew that it was unscientific to impute emotions to animals, since there was no way of knowing what any given animal was thinking or if it was thinking anything at all. Yet the subject of animal emotions served as his literary gateway to the topic of human emotions; and in any event he was just as sure that animals thought and felt as he was of nearly everything else in his life. He mused,
“Watching the game, one was struck by the intensity and the evanescence of their emotions. Civilized man now usually passes his life under conditions which eliminate the intensity of terror felt by his ancestors when death by violence was their normal end, and threatened them every hour of the day and night. It is only in nightmares that the average dweller in civilized countries now undergoes the hideous horror which was the regular and frequent portion of his ages-vanished forefa-thers, and which is still an every-day incident in the lives of most wild creatures. But the dread is short-lived, and its horror vanishes with instantaneous rapidity.”
Source: T.R., The Last Romantic, pages 652-653
Fancy-Way5959 on
Kermit really said “non-lethal takedown” and paid the price.
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When not [meeting](https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryMemes/s/DkcW3nLtPm) Savanna Dutch, Theodore Roosevelt was hunting. On the way to camp, Roosevelt, his son Kermit, and guide Sir Alfred spotted fresh signs of lions and detoured toward a thicket to flush out any big cats hiding there:
“We rode up to it and shouted loudly. The response was immediate, in the shape of loud gruntings, and crashings through the thick brush. We were off our horses in an instant, I throwing the reins over the head of mine; and without delay the good old fellow began placidly grazing, quite unmoved by the ominous sounds immediately in front. I sprang to one side; and for a second or two we waited, uncertain whether we should see the lions charging out ten yards distant, or running away. Fortunately, they adopted the latter course. Right in front of me, thirty yards off, there appeared, from behind the bushes which had first screened him from my eyes, the tawny, galloping form of a big, maneless lion. Crack! the Winchester spoke; and as the soft-nosed bullet ploughed forward through his flank the lion swerved so that I missed him with the second shot; but my third bullet went through the spine and forward into his chest. Down he came, sixty yards off, his hind quarters dragging, his head up, his ears back, his jaws open and lips drawn up in a prodigious snarl, as he endeavored to turn to face us. His back was broken; but of this we could not at the moment be sure, and if it had been merely grazed, he might have recovered, and then, even though dying, his charge might have done mischief. So Kermit, Sir Alfred, and I fired, almost together, into his chest. His head sank, and he died.”
(Mind you, only Kermit & Theodore were officially hunting, so even the guide jumping into the fray highlighted the surprise).
Roosevelt killed eight other lions, eight elephants, thirteen rhinoceroses, seven hippopotamuses, twenty zebra, seven giraffes, six buffalo (the real thing, not the bison of North America), and scores of lesser mammals, as well as dozens of birds, from ostriches (two) and great bustards (four) down to the odd duck and songbird, and three pythons. The quirks of animal behavior caused Roosevelt to reflect on animal emotions, which in turn caused him to reflect on human emo-tions. Roosevelt knew that it was unscientific to impute emotions to animals, since there was no way of knowing what any given animal was thinking or if it was thinking anything at all. Yet the subject of animal emotions served as his literary gateway to the topic of human emotions; and in any event he was just as sure that animals thought and felt as he was of nearly everything else in his life. He mused,
“Watching the game, one was struck by the intensity and the evanescence of their emotions. Civilized man now usually passes his life under conditions which eliminate the intensity of terror felt by his ancestors when death by violence was their normal end, and threatened them every hour of the day and night. It is only in nightmares that the average dweller in civilized countries now undergoes the hideous horror which was the regular and frequent portion of his ages-vanished forefa-thers, and which is still an every-day incident in the lives of most wild creatures. But the dread is short-lived, and its horror vanishes with instantaneous rapidity.”
Source: T.R., The Last Romantic, pages 652-653
Kermit really said “non-lethal takedown” and paid the price.
IT’S COMING RIGHT FOR US