A "Tail" Unfolded.

Cromwell Argus, Volume I, Issue 17, 9 March 1870, Page 7

A "Tail" Unfolded.

The following tale of a " tail" is from the Northern Argus (Roekbampton) : The adage " Truth is stranger than fiction" is as old as the lulls, and it is one that has proved more correct than many adages which have become as familiar as household words. Since we have lived in the Australias we have heard, as a matter of course, a great jinany sensational stories about snakes ; and it has been our fortune to assist frequently in lessening the numbers of those formidable, slimy, creeping things, which are the terror of all mothers, and which are so constantly coiling and twisting around our homesteads, and gliding into our parlours, bedrooms, and kitchens. But we heard a snake story yesterday which for ludicrousness has rarely been equalled, while there was just enough horror about it to make it enteresting. A lady, who does not live many miles from Bockhampton, and who has inherited, as a daughter of Eve should do, a hatred and dread of "serpents" more venomous than that one of old Nile which stung poor Anthony, never goes to bed without examining every nook and corner of the house : she peers under the sofa ; peeps under the bed ; scans the roof, and examines the walls ; empties the linen out of the dirty clothes bag, and turns over the pillows. More than once her industry has been rewarded, and she has several times triumphantly exhibited to her admiring neighbors reptiles as dead as nails, and minus heads (she always burns the heads), hanging across the broom-handle. On Thursday evening, her husband being absent ami her children in bed, she commenced her rounds, and was startled by seeing, protruding from beneath the dressing table, which was covered to the ground with muslin and pink lining, a portion of a black tail. Off she ran, and returned almost instantly with a tomahawk, and with one determined blow she severed the tail several inches above the tip. Directly there arose the most dismal bowlings, yelpings, and cries—then followed a scrambling, rushing, and tearing. -In her fright, the lady dropped the candle, and she was left in darkness. Before she could escape from the room, something rushed between her legs, and toppled her completely over. She fell with a scream that shamed that of Giles Scroggins's Molly Bawn, and which might have awakened the Seven Sleepers. In a few seconds a neighbour rushed in, and finding all as dark as a wolf's'mouth and quiet as the chamber of death, she ran home, obtained a lucifer, struck a light, and found the lady on the floor in a fainting fit, and the children under the bed-clothes almost dead with terror. Smelling-salts, cold water, slapping of hauds, and bathing of temples followed, but it was some time before Airs was sufficiently recovered to tell her story. With something approaching downright terror, the frightened neighbor crept to the dressing-table and picked up the point of the tail. " Good gracious !" said she, "this is not a snake's tail."—" Not a snake's tail! Then it must be the ." [We spare the lady.] It was dropped as if it had been burning hot, and the panstood staring into' each other's eyes with' perfect bewilderment. After a little time, however, they summoned courage to pick up the tail once more and examine it. The mystery was solved—the howling, the yelping, the crying, the scrambling, the rush between the legs, and the 'fall. It was the tail of a favourite blue-coloured kangarooklbg. The unfortunate beast had crept under the dressing-table to take a nap where the mosquito's could not worry him, and tho point of his thin, dark tail was alone visible. We will say no more, but will leave the after scene to the imagination of our readers: the wailings and weepings, interspersed with laughter, and the moans of tho unfortunate dog, who can, however, whenever he pleases, see the the point of his tail swimming in spirits of wnne. , , : v..

An old stable-keeper in England say 3 ho has never had a bad foot on Ins horses since he commenced the practice of bedding on a thick layer of saw-dust. Pine saw-dust he finds tho best ; and oak the worst.