Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 January 1895 — HE CUT HIS TAIL SHORT. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HE CUT HIS TAIL SHORT.

Did You Ever Catch a Real Lirt Porcupine? Ploemington Eye. One morning recently Jack Lansdow, of Dyer county, Tenn., picked up a hatchet and started out to thf wood pile to cut some kindling. As he stepped from the kitchen door he was surprised to see a large hemlock porcupine climbling a tree about ter feet from the door. Lansdow had often heard that ifa porcupine’s tail is cut off while in the act of climbing it will stop and refuse to climb higher or descend. As the prickly little animal about four feet from , the ground, Jack had no difficulty in springing forward and with a quick blow of the hatchet severing the tail of the porcupine in twain. Sure enough, .the animal Stopped its ascent and has remained in the same posh tion since. A porcupine is rarely ever seen in that part of the country, and is therefore quite a curiosity to Tennesseeans. Jack’s meigbors soon heard

jf the porcupine and begah coming to see it. Lansdow could see no reason why he should not make some money out Of the thing, so he placed 1 twelve-foot peep tight fence around it and began charging 10 cents admission. He made several dollars a lay with his prize and one Sunday collected $4.10. The animal has become perfectly used to the crowd and readily eats ind drinks from its master’s hands. Lansdow says be would cut off a section of the tree with the porcupine/ jn it and carry the animal around ind exhibit it but for the fact that it is on a valuable shade tree, and that the porcupine may not be able to hold on much longer. At present, though, according to a Veracious correspondent of the Cincinnati Enquirer, it looks as chipper as it did ' aefore it lost its caudal appendage.

SHORTENING THE TAIL.