Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 May 1877 — A Desperate Situation. [ARTICLE]

A Desperate Situation.

This morning the company belonging to Montgomery Queen’s circus passed through the public streets. The last wagon in the caravan consisted of a cage containing a lion and lioness and tiger and their keeper. The tiger crouched stealthily in one corner of the cage, the lioness in another, and between them sat the keeper. During the entire parade the )ion manifested a good deal of uneasiness at the presence of the tiger in the cage, and made several attempts to approach it, but was prevented from doing so by the keeper. When opposite the N evada Block, on Montgomery street, however, the two animals managed to rush upon one another, Then followed one of the most exbiting scenes imaginable. The keeper rushed in between the infuriated animals for the purpose of separating them, and the curious and horror-stricken crowd rushed instinctively toward the cage to render assistance, were it possible. While engaged in separating the beasts, the lion seized the keeper’s thigh and drove his teeth deep into the flesh. The excited CYowd pn the outside then began to raise their vdice? in alarm, but the man whose life was thus placed in: Jeopardy coolly told them to be quiet, and seizing an iron bar he struck the lion on the head several times, finally compelling him to release his hold ana return to his corner. Blood flowed freely from his wounds.— San FraMitco Bulletin. —An enraptured Burlington lover, hearing his sweetheart sfgh dejectedly the other evening, rapturously administered a quartette ofkisses, and exclaimed: “ You’re mine now, in spite of fAtef” “And why?” she asked. “Because,” he said, “four of a kind beats ace high.” But she believes to this day that he played a cold deck on her.— Burlington Hawk-Bye.