Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 131, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 June 1913 — STORIES from the BIG CITIES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

STORIES from the BIG CITIES

Big African Python Reminded of Native Jungle

NEW YORK. —Here’s a snake you ought to be glad you didn’t see. No dream is thia after a night with John Barleycorn, Esq. Bill Snyder, head keeper of the menagerie at Central Park, had this snake, and Bill is a man for whom even one o’clock cabarets are too late. A python was brought from India for the park zoo a few days ago and was the next morning landed at the menagerie. It was sent out in a wicker basket, reinforced with wire netting. They took it to the monkey house. Gathered around the reptile were Snyder, Bob Hunter, his assistant, Tod Keenan, keeper of the monkey house, George Sichert, keeper of the lions, and Louis La Roche of Park Commissioner Stover’s staff, who was responsible for the coming of the mammoth python. The latter is sixteen feet

long, eight inches in diameter and weighs 150 pounds. Hie basket was opened and the gate of the cage, where eight or ten more African pythons disported themselvee, was .also opened. Snyder grabbed the eater of men and cows and other things by the head and began to unwind him. . The pythbn was supposed to be still in his condition of coma, but he must have smelt the monkeye. This reminded him of his native jungle anjl must have awakened him to the fact that he was hungry. He began to wriggle. Oh, oh, shivers and gooseflesh! The python wriggled his tail loose, knocking Hunter and La Roche galley west. The tail turkey-trotted some and then got a clinch on La Roche’s leg. La Jtoche gave a yell, as well he might. The whole body of the python was in motion, and he had a jiu-jitsu on La Roche’s leg. Snyder put the big, ugly head under his arm and choked him with all his might. Keenan and Hunter wrestled with the tall, and finally, between choking and hauling they got the tail away from its bearings. Then Snyder slammed the head into the python cage and they tumbled the rest of the snake after the head.