IN A TIGHT PLAGE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2474, 19 May 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)

IN A TIGHT PLAGE.

A singular and at the same time seriocomic accident happened to a Paris watchman named Parnot recently. Parnot was "employed near the Champs de Mars to look after some buildings which were in course of construction, and in order to keep himself warm during the night h« put some planks over a cnudron of boiling bitumen, and, covering himself carefully up. went to sleep on them. During the night the phnks gave way by degrees, and the man slid gently into the bitumen. Under normal conditions he ought to have been boiled, but the bitumen was just beginning to feel the effects of the frost, and so the watchman was saved from a horrible death. Unluckily, however, tlio bitumen before thoroughly freezing had adhered to Parnot's clothes and flesh and about 4 o'clock in the morning he wn.ii awakened by cold which seemed to have entered the marrow of hia bones. I .'a endeavouring to get up he found himself glued to a bed of adamant, and shouted energetically for help. His cries attracted some matutinal marauders who were proceeding around the localities for plunder, and these worthies, instead of helping the unfortunate man out of liisbitumiuous bed,eased him of his watch, a purse containing a small sum of money and his knife, after which they indulged in unreasonable chaff as to his inability to " rise with the lark " and finally left him to his fate. Parnot was nearly frozen to death when the workmen arrived in tho morning and extricated him from hia perilous position. He had to be admitted to the hospital as an urgent case, as not only were his feet frozen, but he had seriously injured himself in his cneri»otic but ineffectual endeavours to rise.