TARANTULA THROUGH THE POST.

Manawatu Standard, Volume 9136, Issue 9136, 8 February 1910, Page 2

TARANTULA THROUGH THE POST.

The dead letter office of the Post Oflico Department at Washington, D.C., on Thursday, November 18, belied its name when a tarantula threw the clerks into a frenzy that for a moment threatened to become a stampede The trouble started when J. E. Davis, an experienced clerk, in the opening of suspicious mail, tore the cover from a mysterious looking package addressed to "Dott Huggero Verity, via Leon V. Firenzo, Florence, Italy." Ho found a box pierced with small holes. Placing it to ;his car he shook it in an effort to ascertain whether or not it contained an infernal machine. The lid came off. "Jumping Jehosophat J" excaimed Davis, when he found a gigantic tarantula roosting on his shoulder. He knocked it to the floor, where at promptly began a masterly retreat. Women clerks climbed on desks and fell <over one another to escape the fuzzy peril. Never, 6aid a veteran employee of 'flio dead letter office, were so many silk stockings seen in the office before. After a brief but determined search, the tarantula was discovered in a pile of mail sacks, where it was killed. The box was mailed in New York, and because of its foreign destination and its suspicious appearance, was sent to Washington for examination.