A MENAGERIE AT LARGE.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 471, 27 February 1869, Page 3

A MENAGERIE AT LARGE.

The people of Philadelphia had lately a rather exciting lesson in natural history. A saw-mill in Quaker City took fire; and close at hand was another building in which a travelling menagerie-keeper had deposited his wild animals. The showman, eager to save his stock, tumbled the beasts, cages and all, into the street, for those outside to remove; but this rough treatment burst some of the boxes, and not a few " denizens of the forest" were set at liberty. A Bengal royal tiger and a Brazilian jaguar got out first, the crowd making respectful way for his majesty of the jungle. The

tiger slunk into some Btables, where he was shut in, and secured. The jaguar walked calmly down Twentysecond street, and turned into the house of a Dr Gebler, in the portico of which several ladies were standing. The polite beast did not incommode them, but judiciously stalked into the kitchen, and there awaited re-capture. Meantime, a lion all but escaped from his cage, and in the confusion a white Florida wolf got quietly away, and, since it a good deal resembled a dog, was not noticed in the crowd. The wolf strolled along, attaching himself to a citizen who was entering his front gate, and walked in along with him. The Philadelphian also took the intruder for a dog, till the gas-lamp revealed his true character, when the householder prudently opened the parlour door and showed the brute in —so that the wolf was presently captured without accident. Clearly the natives of the jungle were even" more disconcerted by their novel position than the bipeds; but for all that, tigers and wolves are ''fearful wild fowl," and not quite the kind of visitors that we welcome in parlours and kitchens.