RUNAWAY ELEPHANT.

Taranaki Daily News, 17 September 1924, Page 10

RUNAWAY ELEPHANT.

CHARGES A MOTOR-CAR. INCIDENT IN ADELAIDE. Sydney, August 21. A wandering elephant is a novelty in any city of the world, and may well inspire some interest and* little trepidation, especially when it emits unearthly noises and charges headlong at a motor car. So there is some excuse for the excitement which prevailed for about half an hour in one of the quieter streets of Adelaide one afternoon a day or two ago. A travelling circus was visiting the city. How its favourite elephant managed to stroll out for the afternoon urrperceived is a mystery. All that matters to those concerned is that it did do so, and some hoars later, as thought by instinct seeking the propinquity of its kind, it astonished passersby and some few students at an adjacent school of mines, whose attention had strayed from their lectures to the pleasant afternoon prospect out-of-doors, by plodding and snorting along a street that abuts the Zoo. For a while people took merely a mild interest in the leisurely progress of the immense beast, believing that it had some association with the Zoo, and that its keepers were probably not far off. But events moved quickly. For their own good reasons no one ventured to molest the stroller, but one lecturer at the

school of mines decided to ring up the director of the Zoo, Mr. Minchin. He had just got into communication with that gentleman when a loud cry arose from the street and must have reached the director’s ear. Rushing from the telephone to ascertain the cause, the lecturer was just in time to isee the ungainly mass in a state of supreme animation, charging across the road at a swerving motor-car. It appears that Mr. Minchin’s son, all unaware of what was abroad, was driving rapidly from the Zoo, and came suddenly upon the elephant. Something about the car, possibly fear that it was something that was about to attack it, roused the eildphant to violent excitement, and in a moment the docile mountain of flesh was plunging towards the motor car as though ready to strike down and crush all ‘before it. By a skilful swerve Mr. Minchin avoided his adversary which went thundering blindly on till broupt up on the opposite side of the road. Well used to handling wild animals, Mr. Minchin soon palled up his car and ran back to where the elephant had turned and was standing snouting and lashing its trunk about with its little eyes flashing menacingly from its huge head. Fearlessly Mr. Minchin walked straight up to the beast, which seemed to well understand this play of authority, and offered no resistance. Mr. Minchin then seized hold of one of the elephant’s great flapping ears, and the creature was reduced once again to complete subjection, and consented without any further show of anger to be led off to the Zoo, where it was placed in safe keeping until its proprietors were ascertained.