ALLIGATOR DIES

Hokitika Guardian, 22 June 1926, Page 4

ALLIGATOR DIES

PALMHRSTO.X X.. June Id. The lot of a. travelling showman is sometimes u precarious one. and when his exhibits are live animals whose commercial peculiarities result in iheir removal to climes hitherto unknown to them, lie is quite likely to encounter misfortune. A .showman at present visiting the .Manawatii winter fixture has fallen upon evil times. Yesterday morning his large alligator, who commenced its life in Florida, South America, one hundred years .ago, quietly closed its

wrinkled eyes anil departed unto the limbo of its fathers. They prodded its horny sides and pulled at its sweeping tail, hut, as a commercial asset to man, the animal had ceased to function. A reporter inspected the carcase, the mouth of which was now propped open with a splat of wood. How had the animal died? “Oh, lie just turned it in,” said the showman, dolefully. It had cost him £l2O, lie ami, and he had experienced some difficulty in introducing ii into New Zealand, in which country it was the only specimen of its kind. It hjad only been on tour with tlie showman for six months when the exceptional coldness of Palmerston North’s weather wrote finis to its chanter. The showman threw a peanut affoctionately at a kangaroo which moved sluggishly about the enclosure. “That chap doesn’t look too sprightly himself this morning.” he remarked. Further conversation revealed the fact that the passing of the alligator was only an event in a sequence of misfortunes. F.ight weeks ago tbe more robust of two kangaroos, which constituted the Australian section of the showman’s exhibit, had maliciously jumped upon the neck of his seven-months-old companion. and the youngster had departed thence. In substantiation of his fearfulness, till' victor ravenously attacked a packet of four-inch nails. “And then,” continued the showman. “at Auckland, just about the same time as somebody put a bullet into the 'gator’s shoulder—it didn't even disturb his digestion—my orangoutang died. This will be my. last appearance here with what I have left,” he concluded.

Before lie goes, the soil of Palmerston Xorth will receive the dead liodv of the visitor from ancient Florida. But a showman is a showman and he is coming back next year with a monkey show.