JAMUMA KICKS OVER THE TRACES

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 3280, 25 February 1926, Page 10

JAMUMA KICKS OVER THE TRACES

Elephasifs Dash For Liberty

CONSTERNATION IN ENGLISH VILLAGE

LONDON, December 11

Broken fences, walls, and windows, along a two-mile track through the village of Whetstone, near Barnet. Hertfordshire, mark where a runaway baby elephant named Jamuma demonstrated the other morning that truth can be stranger than a film producer’s fiction.

Jamuma was being, moved at night for safety’s sake, from Barnet to Lon-, don Docks. Having reached the ago of 11, she was to take ship to begin her career in Bueqos Air At At nine o’clock on Sunday night she had reached Whetstone High road and there a motor-car’s headlights so startled her that she throw the Indian mahout frdin her back and charged him down. Dive Into Window. While passers-by were assisting the mahout to a neighbouring surgery a crash of glass told them that Jumuma , had dived into the big plate glass window of Pope’s garage. They next saw her gallop into a circle in the load and disappear up a side street. Police and civilians who followed came to a significant hole in a new fence, which suggested that Jumuma was charging down on the rear of the police station. Every available policeman forthwith joined in the pursuit. Noises of heavy crashes from the allotments told wher e Jamuma could be found. Followers saw her dash through a hedge, bowl over a water butt,, snap off an upright post, and then, to their horror, make for the fence that partitioned off sweet’s nurseries, where there are thousands of pounds’ worth of glass-houses. Among the Glass-Houses.

She*-crashcd through the fence into the nursery grounds, when one of the searchers brightly suggested that they should open a gate arid waylay her as she left. Here the .manager of the nurseries cafrie into the picture. Ho said to a reporter:, ■ “We saw ' her .charging down among the glass-houses, where the slightest deviation would mean that she would do thousands of pounds’ worth of damage.

“But shp came straight on towards the gate! She went, however, through the fence instead, carrying away about 12 feet of it. Then she dashed into thieVpriyate gardens and hid behind a tree.

“Cautiously the search party approached ..and, while, looking for a nierins of escape, she put her head and shoulders through the conservatory, breaking two pipes and a lot of glass.”

...A: gathered at. the garden gate to see her leave. When she did ! leave she made a second hole in the fence, and four of the waiting crowd made such a race for safety that they became impaled on barbed wire and bent an iron fence. 4ft. Gin Jump. Jamuma next raced across a field; jumped a 4ft. Gin wall—•-leaving'lt so cracked and weak that tit - would' now collapse at a touch —and began to eat leaves in a garden. While a police-man-;\yas warning; the' occupants not to come .out she charged the hunting party, and- it was a few minutes before they filtered out from their hiding places. ■ , ■.:• •' 1 * •By then the mahout had returned from tile doctor, having had a graze i across his chest dressed; He whispered false promises to his charge and got a rope round her. The party drew near, and began to congratulate each other and say ’’Good night,” when a shout, “she’s off . again.” ; made them look at the figure of. Jamunla disappearing down the lane. b Reaching a different field of allotrflehts she slightly raised the roof of a small hut- and howled over a row of sticks.* Thepf-she made a clean path, through the gardens of three houses, one Sleepy occupier inquiring from the window, "Hi! .What’s ; the game?” While. a policeman was explaining she was off again. It was 3 a.m. when, by the aid of more whispers and gardens tools wielded by the j seach party, the mahout induced Jamuma to (step into a loop of chain. Soon both fore and hind logs were chained, and she twostepped to the nearest garage, to be chained to two uprights and the whels of a lorry. She awoke in the morning surrounded by soft bay and with the biggest crane in th e district beside her. She pushed her badly cut head quietly into a horse ambulance and followed with th e rest of her body.