LION IN A SCULLERY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17739, 28 March 1932, Page 10

LION IN A SCULLERY

ESCAPE FROM A FAIR GROUND

NO ATTEMPT TO BE VIOLENT

LONDON, Feb. 8.

A lion which escaped from its cage on the fair ground at Bloxwich, a suburb of Walsall, Stafford, on Saturday night, climbed a wall into the garden ol a house, and when the back door was opened walked into the scullery. Between 6 and 7 o’clock Mrs. Parsons, who lives in Church street, which adjourns the fair ground, went into her garden to empty a teapot. She saw an object which she thought was a little girl who visits the house. She walked up and touched it, but, feeling an animal's coat, she became alarmed and walked buck to the house. The lion followed her, and when it walked into the light and Mrs. Parsons saw what it was she screamed and ran into tho front mom. The lion then walked through the back door and into the scullery. Mrs. Parsons’ husband slammed the door, and they both dashed through tlio front room to the street and notified the police. The owner of the lion, a travelling showman named Robert Meanl, was fetched. He secured tho assistance of a professional trainer, and, after they had barricaded the window of the scullery, they went back to (lie fair ground to fetch the lion's cage,, in which was a full-grown lioness. The cage, with the lioness in it, was taken into Church street and hacked against the front door of Mrs. Parsons’ house. In the meantime the lion had got out of the scullery and was roaming about the house. When tho front door was opened, however, the lion quietly walked into its cage. It had made no attempt to he violent, and. apart from clawing a woman's fur, which had been lying on a chair in the scullery. and breaking a small vase and the I glass in a picture on tho wall, it had •’done no damage.