MAN FIGHTS WITH ALLIGATOR.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3333, 9 August 1926, Page 8

MAN FIGHTS WITH ALLIGATOR.

EPIC IN A POOL. There is a man in Florida, a man quite unconnected with circuses, who makes an excellent living by wrestling with alligators each day of his life. He is Henry Coppinger, of Miami, who dives into the swampy pools of the Florida glades, and drags out of them with his bare hands their alligator inhabitants, using tactics corresponding to those of a cowboy when ho bulldogs” a steer. On bis own initiative he took up the task of “rasslin’ ’gators,” as he calls it and evolved a kind of jiu-jitsu technique which enables him to hold a 16ft alligator at his mercy once he has obtained a. firm grip on its snout. Thanks to the fame which his nrowess brought him, Coppinger now owns a thriving alligator farm, but all through the alligator season he still indulges in his hazardous wrestling feat for the benefit of visitors. At these “exhibition bouts” an extra large alligator is caught and brought to the scene of operations in a crate, which is placed oil the brink of a nool in which the wrestling match is to take place. When all the spectators are assembled Coppinger appears clad in a bathing suit, and opens a side of the crate. The alligator at once waddles out from captivity and plunges in the pool. , . Copj.fi uger now boards an Indian canoe, hollowed from a tree trunk, and poles his way to the approximate position of his adversary. At once he throws the pole aside and plunges* into the water, diving down to where the alligator rests on the bottom. As the monster comes forward to seize him, its jaws arc seized in a vice-like grip. A Homeric struggle between man and monster then begins—all the more thrilling because, while the man is lighting in a, strange element, the alligator is completely at home. The water of the pool is churned to foam. Coppinger is faced with instant, mutilation or death if he loses his grip on the deadly jaws for a moment. , At last the monster grows tired, his struggles grow feebler. Coppinger, holding his jaws with one hand, and with the other holding its tail wrapped round his own body, now slowly makes his way back to the canoe. There arc many slips and falterings, the talons of the alligator daw wickedly iu the air still, the tail still wriggles convulsively, but at last the monster, which weighs many times more than the man who has subdued it, is hoisted on hoard the frail canoe. A homing pigeon returned recently to a loft at Bath, England, after an absence of three years and nine months. This is considered to be a remarkable instance of bird memory. The bird was lost at Marennes, France, on July 10, 1922.