PANTHER ATTEMPTS ESCAPE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18019, 18 February 1922, Page 2 (Supplement)

PANTHER ATTEMPTS ESCAPE

RED HOT IRON STOPS HIM.

The seas were placid on the trip that the United Fruit liner Pastores, from Port Limon and Havana, finished at New York recently, but thirteen wild animals gave the voyagers some thrills quite as stimulating as those of a tropical hurricane for a few hours, when Asia, the only black panther in captivity, made an effort to get out of his iron-barred wooden cage. '

Captain Tom Wilmoth, animal trainer, heard the panther snarling and roaring and went to the cage and found that the panther had twisted two bars and was poking his head between them trying to widen the aperture by the power of his mighty shoulders. Captain Tom summoned an assistant to watch the " black de*vil, who can lick twice his weight in royal Bengal tigers" (Captain Tom s own words), and went after hot irons and the ".hip's carpenter.

Meanwhile the passengers, other than thirteen circus freaks used to being shipmates with the wilder animals, began to feel a little upset over the roaring of five lions, six tigers (all gnaranteed royal Bengal), one American puma, and the ebony panther. A lion that' got his tail caught between a wooden cover of his cage and the floor, contributed the largest share to the pandemonium. When Captain Tom appeared on deck with hot irons and the carpenter he first released the lion's tail and cut out some of the vociferation. i

Then he presented the red hot end of tho irons to the black panther, who backed out of the opening he had shoved his head through and let the carpenter, a little nervous "over a job that was not strictly in his nautical line, make tho cage secure against any future effort of the panther to get loose. The fat lady of Kalamazoo slept through all tho disturbance, and the iron-jawed man poohpoohed (he incident, remarking thut if he once got his teeth in tho throat of the pantjier the Ringling Bros, and Barnum and Bailey show would stand to lose one of its "finest menagerie assets.

Captain Tom attributed tho attempt of the black panther to escape mostly to a desire to get to Nemo, the lion with which Asia performs and from whom ho is seldom separated. The animals arc going to winter quarters at Bridgeport. The show has been at Havana, , |