Tiger Hunt at Sea

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6627, 14 August 1931, Page 5

Tiger Hunt at Sea

INCIDENT ON GERMAN SHIP. LONDON, Aug. 5. Tho famous short story by Ernest O’Fcrrall (“Kodak,” of tlio Sydney Bulletin) of the lodger who took a lioness homo to his boarding-house, belioving that it was a yellow dog, is paralleled by an incident aboard the Norddcutscher-Lloyd steamer Lahn, ono of whose sailors called and patted an animal which ho thought was the ship’s dog, and found that it was a man-eating tiger. It chased him to tho engine-room and toro his wrists to the bone, necessitating his going to hospital at Alarseillcs.

The engineer on watch telephoned a warning to the chief engineer asking for instructions, thereby unconsciously emulating the Indian booking clerk who telegraphed to his superior officer: “Tiger eating stationniaster; what shall I do?” The officers and crew of tho Lahn took revolvers and began a tiger-hunt which ended in tho death of the animal after it had savagely scratched the fourth officer. While at largo the tiger ate four of the crew’s pet monkeys. Its skin will be preserved as a memento. Tho animal was ono of five tigers shipped from Singapore for London. One became sick and was Sent ashore; another died; while the hero of the present story had escaped from its cage, when the Lahn was in the Mediterranean, before the adventure which ended in its death. Tho two survivors have been dispatched to their destination.