Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 January 1875 — Dangerous Flay. [ARTICLE]

Dangerous Flay.

The accidents that have frequently happened and the warnings that newspapers give constantly seem never to impress some people with the fact that leopards and their kind have claws, and under certain circumstances are apt to use them. It was not long ago that the Herald announced the terrible tearing of the hand of a young man at the Central Park menagerie, while petting a lion against the advice of one of the and yesterday another accident, similar, except that the animal that inflicted the injury was a black Java leopard, instead of a lion, is to be recorded. At Barnum’s Hippodrome, and near the entrance, going in from Madison avenue, stands the cage that holds the performing animals, consisting of a lion and a lioness, a Brazilian tiger, a spotted leopard and the black Java leopard mentioned above. Yesterday afternoon a young man who had been intently watching the man who takes care of the animals patting the black leopard concluded that he would undertake the same pleasant duty. W aiting until the keeper had turned his back he crept under the iron bar and thrust his hand in the cage. It came out, however, quicker than it went in, and in the most deplorable condition, being nearly torn off by the claws of the infuriated brute. This little feat, however, did not satisfy the animal. She began to storm up and down the cage, and terribly excited the rest of the animals that were confined with her, and finally, in one of her desperate efforts, she severed some of the wire lacings that are pflt against the bars to confine her more securely, and in the next moment she stood free in the promenade. Her long, black, lithe body, gliding around with as little noise as a serpent would make, was soon noticed by the other animals, and then the opera commenced. Dan and Pomp, the two great African lions, opened first their bass voices, and were soon followed in concert by the howl of ihe hyena and the bellowing of the sacred bull and water buflalo. Every animal in the place, it seemed, took a hand in the frolic, and finally a hand in was taken by the keeper of the leopard. She, however, did not seem so tractable as usual, and showed fight, and might have made it rather ugly for the keeper had not an unexpected appearance been put in at that moment by Master J ack, the bull-terrier dog, whose countenance is familiar to ad who visit the Hippodrome. The dog at once made a dash for the leopard and seized hinf by the throat, and though the struggle was a fearful one, Jack managed to retain his hold until the animal was secured. The keeper was cut about the hands in the struggle, hut not badly injured, and it is a lucky thing, perhaps, that no perfornrance was going on at the time.— N. Y. Herald