A BULL AT LARGE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 130, 10 September 1910, Page 3

A BULL AT LARGE.

| EXCITEMENT IN DEVON .STREET. A visitor to New Plymouth the other day said it was passing stange to nee bullock-drawn vehicles in the main street of a town of this size. The staid oxen were not in it yesterday with a purebred bull, which enlivened the proceedings of the morning very considerably. The bull was an Ayrshire, the property of a Warea farmer, who had had him brought from Palmerston North by train. The oidinary precaution of attaching a bullstick to his nose-ring was not taken, and the bull, rendered a trifle unruly by his confinement in the truck and then by the novelty of his surroundings as he landed in the railway yard, took full advantage of the omission. The railway men and others standing by scattered to all points of the compass as the bull galloped about' the railway yard, dragging three or four men on the rope attached to his nose. He was altogether too strong for them, and only emerged on the public highway after he had sent the crowd into the shelter of vans, carriages and buildings. With his one attendant hanging to the rope, the Ayrshire trotted along Brougham street into

Devon street, and the roadway was eleare<l more rapidly and more effectively than could have been managed by half a hundred policemen. The man in charge whipped some of the slack rope 'around a verandah post, and held the bull captive for a while. It was surprising how many people knew exactly what to do. They all shouted instructions to the man with the rope, and all shouted different instructions; but they all stood clear of the bull. He did not relish being held up in the thoroughfare, and frustrated the idea of setting a turn on his horns by putting his three-quar-ters of a ton solid on the rope. Away went the nose ring, and awav went the bull. The crowd scattered —thev went as they never went before. The bull perambulated several streets, eventunllv trotting into the Recreation Grounds by the Liardet street entrance and emerging at the Voofpltown gatewav. Rome children playintr near by were badly scared, but the animal was not vicious, and no damasre was done. A couple of cows in a paddock were used as a decoy, and the bull was quietened down and driven awav. Ordinarily, we understand, this bul l i*. n verv quiet tbeast, and it was o-niv the strangeness of his surroundings that pvpited him.