TAMING A LIONESS. TWO MEN HAVE A NARROW ESCAPE.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 422, 23 November 1889, Page 3

TAMING A LIONESS. TWO MEN HAVE A NARROW ESCAPE.

Yesterday morning (says a Hoboken despatch of October 16bh), was tho scene of a desperate h'ghb between two men and a young, untamed lioness, which almost resuited fatally for one of the men, who, however, escaped by dealing a deathblow on the back of the head to the ferocious queen of the forest. Hermann Reiche is an animal importer, andhaa in his barn a large number of wild beasts. Two weeks ago he received ah order for a tamed lioness, but he had" not any. Ho did,' however, have a fine three-year-old wild lioness. She 'had never seemed very vicious, and he tho.ughb that she could bo tamed quite easily. With one of his men, Edward ' Thiele, ho gave the lioness several lessons^ tying her legs together and throwing her on her back and then playing gently with her. Yesterday he thought she was quite tamed, and so he said to Thielo, " Now we will simply pub two chains to her collar. You will take one chain and I'll take the other, and we will hold her between us. If she becomes ugly we will be able to keep her irom doing any harm to either of us." So chains five feet in length were adjusted to *, collar round the lioness' neck and she was walked out of the cage into the barn. Each of the men had armed himself with an iron bar. At first the lioness didn't seem to notice that this training lesson was in any way different from others, > and ehe behaved herself. Then ib dawned upon her that her legs were all righb. The lioness dashed away nobly with her tutors hanging on to the ends of hor chains, 'afraid to let go. George, the coloured coachman, was .in the race, too. He kopb ahead of the lioness, and ran as,he had never run before in his life. Suddenly she stopped in ' the chase of the negro, and turned on Reiche. " Hold her, Eddie ! hold her i" yelled Reiche to his man, and Thiele hung back on the chain and pulled. But the young lioness was very strong, and Thiele -soon tired of the strain. Reiche did nob let go his chain— that would have been unfair — bub he paid oub tho slack liberally. Besides that, he caught his little iron bar firmlj in his hand and hammered the queen about the head and 6houlders with ib. Thiele also hit her with his scraper. The attack in the rear distracted her attention, and it became Thiele's turn to yell. Tho queen darted from one to the other, and would have torn the men to pieces if their sense of danger had nob given them unusual strength. At last, aB Thiele's strength was giving out, the animal made a desperate attack on Reiche and dragged the other man after her. The moment was serious. The lioness must bet overcome at once or she would soon be mistress of the situation and a terrible tragedy would be enacted. Taking careful aim, Reiche hit her just back of the head with his iron bar. She opened her mouth wide, gave one long howl and sank to the floor, dead. Her nock was broken.

Why is anything that is unsuitable like a dumb person ? — Becauno it won't' answer. What belongs to yourself, and yet is used by^everyone moro than yourself? Your name. The boy who was, bent on" eating the green watermelon was in the Bame condition after he had eaten it. A little girl who was given a drink of fizzing mineral water the other day took « sup of it and then exclaimed, "It tastes like your foot's asleep !" "A parlour for'ladiea thirty-five feet high " is one of the advertised attractions of a Southern hotel. It ought to be called a museum of natural curiosities. Couldn'c Help Ib. — Teacher: "I shall have to punish you for being late to achooV Boy : u It. was Johnny Smith s fault, who lives next door. His pa was goin' to giVe him a' lickin', and I bad to stay and Hear him howli"