A BULL IN A CHINA SHOP.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 204, 26 September 1878, Page 4

A BULL IN A CHINA SHOP.

A very uncomfortable incident (among the many disagreeable incidents that have taken place at the present Paris Exhibition) was the irruption of a terrified and terrifying bull in the main building of the Champ de Mara ! The animal was being taken to the Exhibition at the Invalides, when it suddenly became furious, broke away irom the herdsman who had it in charge, and rushed towards the outlet on the Quai d'Orsay, where preparations were being made for raising a bronze bull on a pedestal. The living animal rushed madly at the sculptured one, but, receiving more damage than it gave, became still more infuriated, and notwithstanding the attempts to turn it, charged through the entrance and dashed on in the direction of the Exhibition until it reached the entrance of the Exhibition grounds, into which it rushed, scattering the crowds in every direction, entered the main building, and coursed wildly along until it reached the station of the Bath-chairs. Imagine the terror of the crowds of visitors, peaceably gazing at the various wonders about them, on finding themselves at the mercy of the furious brute so unexpectedly arrived in their midst! Happily, one of the Bath-chair men named Schneider, more courageous than the frightened crowds who were flying in every direction for refuge, resolutely faced the animal as it entered among the chairs and tried to seize it by the horns ; but the bull, maddened by the excitement of the chase, drove Schneider against the wall, and then made for an opening to re-enter the main building. Schneider, however, preserving his coolness, managed to get hold of its horns, and with the aid of a comrade, threw it down, and kept it down until the herdsman, who had followed the runaway, reached the scene of the capture, and marched the dangerous animal back to the cattle Bhow. Strange to say, this latest representative of the traditional " bull in a chinashop," despite the violence of its headlong career and the mass at' costly objects, many of them fragile, amidst which it rushed so wildly, seems to have done no injury to any of them ; but the excitement and terror caused by such an onset in such a place may easily be imagined.