SNAKES LOOSE IN SYDNEY.

Hokitika Guardian, 23 January 1920, Page 4

SNAKES LOOSE IN SYDNEY.

A PANIC IN SURRY HILLS

SYDNEY, January 13.

Surry Hills, a semi-slum area of the city, had a few crowded hours last week. The people who live there are not easily stirred. Shooting with intent to murder, drunken rows, merciless games of hide-aiid-seek between crooks and detectives, and little excitements of that kind are of frequent occurrence in the hideous, ■ narrow (streets. But ;when a company of snakes, whose origin had been in the clean bush and not in adulterated liquor, hurst upon them the inhabitants lost their blase air and displayed very human qualities. The reptiles had been newly gathered by an elderly snake-tamer, who goes out into the wild places after them, and makes a living by handling them in side-shows. He brought home a very lively, miscellaneous collection, and turned them loose in his backyard in Surry Hills, having first, as he thought blocked up all the means of exit He was wrong. The snakes found a large hole, and in the course of the afternoon they scattered themselves over tho neighbourhood. The snake-man tried to keep the disaster a secret, but his frantic search - ings in neighbouring backyards, and his incoherent explanations to suspicious householders, soon made the' position Clear. In no time at all tho whole district whs in a ferment. Here and there the scuttling snakes were seen, while every second resident was sure he had seen one, and terror spread abroad. Mothers went forth seeking their children. One found a whole gang of juveniles in shrieking pursuit of an energetic little grey snake in a side street, and she had the pleasure of seeing her small son grab the thing by the tail and beat it fatally against a wall. A young lady went to see what was disturbing tho fowls. She saw the tail of a snake projecting from a hole in the wall, and, three yards further along, a menacing head appeared through another hole. She retired precipitately to the attic and informed the neighbourhood, in ft loud, excited voice, that the largest reptile in Australia was devouring the poultry. A stableman from next door killed one of these snakes. Darkness fell, and Surry Hills became very shy of its own backyard and went most gingerly to bed. Stories of casualties among the escaped snakes came from here and there, but the old snake tamer irritated the people vastly because he did not know how many had escaped, and how many had yet to be accounted for. A resident, next morning, going to his bathroom, hoard a suspicious rustle —and suddenly decided to go unwashed. The bathroom was watched and, sure enough, a big black snake was presently rooted out and killed. Another was killed in a vegetable plot, and another in a shop. Tho district, that day, organised a snakehunt and cleared out the -menace. That 'evening, a sladidenodi old gentleman, with sundry sacks and sticks, went forth into the wilds in search of a new company of reptiles.