Bonfire of antiquities

Tufts University in Massachusetts keeps a melancholy relic: part of the tail of Jumbo, the elephant that gave its name to all jumbosized things. Jumbo, which lived most of its life in London, died in 1885, but its stuffed remains had stood at Tufts until a fire gutted the building in 1975. Fires are ubiquitous. Over the weekend, we lost 200 yards of Liverpool’s Art Deco Littlewood’s building, empty since 2003. Far worse was a fire the same night that destroyed Rio’s National Museum and its 20million exhibits. Perhaps the five-ton Bendegó iron meteorite, found in 1784, might be salvaged from the ashes, but Egyptian sarcophagi, Peruvian textiles and Greek vases are all gone. We British cannot be smug; fire can strike anywhere. But we should think twice before sending back artefacts so well-cared-for here.