A BEAR HUNT IN LONDON.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVII, Issue 263, 10 November 1906, Page 9

A BEAR HUNT IN LONDON.

tr Why go abroad to see marvels," says a London paper, "when we have them at our door?" On Saturday, for instance, there was a bear hunt in the neighbourhood of King's Cross, where for half-an-hour an enormous crowd might have been seen in hot pursuit of a little black bear. He was a tame- bear, the regimental pet of the 2nd Life Guards., and the poor little fellow was in a. sad state of fright; but if he had been the grisliest of gri?lies from thn Rocky Mountains he could scarcely have created more "excitement; "Philip," as he is called, was to have left Euston Station on Saturday for Dublin, the Life Guards having decided to present him to the Dublin Zoological Gardens; but on the way to the station he managed to bend the bars of his cage, and so escaped. At once there was a panic at King's Cross. Children who

were playing in the streets rushed shrieking into their homes at the sight of a black bear wandering at large. Men and women whom he encountered promptly bolted into shops or any other plac?. which afforded refuge. The shouting and commotion alarmed the little bear, and he rushed into the bar of a public-house in Gray's Inn-road. No "chucker-out" ever cleared a. bar in such record time as Philip did on this occasion. Within two seconds that bar was deserted, Philip being left iv sole possession. Bewildered by his strange experiences., the bear wandered forth into the streets again, and fled before an ever-growing crowd of men and boys, finally taking refuge in a garden in "King's Cross-road. The next development was the arrival of a squad of thirty police with a lassoo! But lassoing is not an accomplishment of the average London "bobby," and the bear defied all their efforts to rope him. Backwards and forwards he ran. snapping right and left in his exasperation at all who came within his reach. jOnee his teeth met in the calf of a man's leg, and another man was badly bitten on the hand. Finally the police obtained a big net. A skilful throw enveloped the bear; policemen grasped the ends of the net, and the bear was carried off hammockfashion to the nearest police-station and deposited in one of the cells. On the slate outside his cell the police wrote: "Bear —bail refused!" The little chap had had a. bad time of it, and was in great distress. When his regimental keeper arrived the bear laid his head on the man's knee, and looked up in his face as though wishiag

he could tell all his troubles. , Food was placc-d in front of him, but he would eat nothing. Next morning the regimental van was sent round to the police-station, and conveyed "Philip" bask to barracks.