A PRECOCIOUS BOY.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2696, 9 August 1894, Page 3

A PRECOCIOUS BOY.

An incomprehensible story is related by the London Telegraph, It concerns Johann Mayer, an eleven-year-old boy living in Vienna, whose truant proclivities had brought him several times into contact with his father’s cane. The father was at a loss to know how to hide the front door key, and at last, we are told, Johann stole the key. Then he sawed the handle through, filed the two ends until they were as sharp as needle points, aud drew them through the skin of his waist. Then he hammered them together, and the key hung down from his body like a ring from the nose of a Hottentot. He was thus enabled, by standing on a chair, to open the door and leave the house whenever he liked, and his father sought in vain for the stolen key. This went on for weeks, and probably would have continued indefinitely had it not been for a fight which little Johann had a few days ago with some bad boys, in the course of which he received a powerful blow precisely where the key was. He fell senseless to the ground, and was transported to the General Hospital of Vienna. Physicians were unable to remove the key, which had to be taken out by an instrument maker. The boy suffered intense agony, but a marked improvement has set in, and in all probability Johann will live to fight another day.