The Ashburton Guardian. Magna Est Veritas et Prevalebit. MONDAY NOVEMBER 15,1886. THE WAIKATO SENSATION.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1407, 15 November 1886, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna Est Veritas et Prevalebit. MONDAY NOVEMBER 15,1886. THE WAIKATO SENSATION.

The question is whether the above heading should’nt be in the plural, for, singular as it may seem, they have developed a double-barreled sensation up Hamilton way. For some weeks past we have been receiving full—will it be correct to say true ?—and particular accounts of the big Saurian whose rows of terrible teeth so appalled the juvenile beholders. We have been told how the footprints of the scaly monster have been found around the slaughter-house from whence he had made off with the carcase of a sheep, and of the elaborate preparations which have been made for his capture should he venture forth from his watery retreat upon another predatory expedition. But we hav’nt been told of his capture. Still in view of the apparently unimpeachable testimony as to the actual appearance of some creature of the alligator species not only on this occasion bu,t on several occasions during a number of years past, we have endeavored to smother a feeling of natural incredulity and to look forward with hope to the eventual production of proof demonstrative in the shape of the creature itself. But now we are positively asked to believe that this remarkable locality is in possession not only of a monster reptile of a species not hitherto known to exist in the colony, but also of a unique specimen of the feline race, of the dimensions of a yearling steer, but whether a lion, a tiger, or a leopard, or something distinct from any of the known fe.ne natures, the deponents seem unable to say. Really this is piling it on a little too much. One monster might be accepted as an article of faith, if faith be the evidence of things unseen, but two at one time, one in the water and the other on land, is rather too severe a strain upon our credulity. And yet the story of the appearance of monster No. 2 is told with a particularity which is very creditable in its completeness of detail if just a trifle exceeding the credible. We are told on the authority of the Hamilton correspondent of the New Zealand ITerald that a few days ago in the precise same locality in which the Saurian recently appeared five boys, while out on a hirds-nesting expedition, saw a strange-iooking creature some thirty or forty yaids away gnawing at something like a cow’s head. They describe it as having a head more like that of a tom-cat than anything else, standing as high as a yearling beast, and being covered with rough brown hair with greyish stripes. One of them fetched his father, who arrived too late on the scene to see the creature, but in company with another man followed its tracks fully a quarter of a mile, where they were lost in the scrub. The footprints are said to have shown marks of daws qt the ends of the toes, to be 2ft jin to 2ft 410 apart, indicating an animal of about 4ft 6in in length and weighing not less than two or three hundred weight. It is added that there is great excitement in the district and that all the inhabitants were qbopt to organise a monster hunting party with guns and dogs with a view to the capture of the strange wild beast, which it is now supposed is an escapee from some travelling menagerie, two of which have visited Hamilton, one a year and a half and the other a few months ago. If the hunters succeed in their endeavor they should next turn their attention to the capture of the celebrated Saurian and send them both to the Auckland Museum where they can be seen by the unbelieving, and will confound for ever the incredulous. And if they don’t, then the next best thing that they can do is to trace out the origina l authors of these exceedingly tall yarns and send them to the Museum for exhibition as the champion—welj cqy romancists of the Southern hemisphere,