Stealing a Crocodile.

Manawatu Herald, 5 December 1896, Page 2

Stealing a Crocodile.

♦ A French ex-soldier named Chaillot, belonging to the Marines, and only recently returned from Madagascar, seems to have acquired a passion for crocodiles during hii stay in the island, for he was caught juat before daybreak on Monday in the act of robbing the Jardin des Plan tea, Paris, of one of these reptiles. The keepers ware awakened at five o'olook by an extraordinary disturbance in the direction of the orooodile ponds, and running there they found two men and a woman attempting to haul a crocodile over the railings which separate this part of the Jardin des Plantes from the road. One rope was attaohed to the crocodile's neck and another to his tail. The reptile was struggling with all its might. On seeing the keepers, the woman and one of the men, who were outside of the railings, dropped the ropes and ran away. Their comrade on the inside was about to climb over the railings when be was savagely attacked by the crocodile, which would undoubtedly have caught him had he not saved himself by running away in a zig-zag direction, thus taking advantage of the crocodile's inability to turn quiokly. One of the keepers managed to coax the reptile back to

its pond, while another secured the would-be robber. . The latter states that he and his accomplices intended to exhibit the creature at fairs held in and around Paris. He had climed over the railings and pat two ropes round the crocodile while it was asleep.