KILLED BY A LION.

Evening Post, Volume L, Issue 125, 23 November 1895, Page 1 (Supplement)

KILLED BY A LION.

A horrible tragedy occurred on 12th September (says St. James' Gazette) iv a meuagerie situated on tli9 Cours dv Midi, Lyons. A young clerk named L on Eissette, employed at the Perruche Railway Station, had the entree of the menagerie, as he know the proprietor and was on friendly terms with the staff of the show. On Wednesday, he made up his mind to be photographed in the lion's cage, and about six o'clock in the morning he went to the menagerie, without the knowledge of the proprietor, in order to carry out his intention. He entered the cage — which was, of course, empty — and while the photographer was getting ready his camera he approached the neighbouring cage, in which an enormous lion named Romulus lay sleeping. He did all he could to excite the animal through the bars, and while pressing against the partition inadvertently opened the trapdoor which separated the two cages. The lion bounded through the opening, and, springing upon the unfortunate clerk, seized his head in his mouth, crushing it terribly. The young fellow must have been killed almost instantaneously. The lion then dragged the body to a corner of tho cage, where it crouched upon the corpse. One of the boys employed in the menagerie, awakened by the cries of the photographer, tried to make the lion release its victim, but he only succeeded in infuriating the animal still further. A tamer was at once fetched, and after great difficulty he managed to make the lion return to its own cage. It was found that the clerk's head had been completely crunched, and his body was in a terribly mutilated condition. One of his ribs was gone, and his right hip was fearfully lacerated by the lion's claws. The deceased was only 24 years of age.