WILD BEASTS AT LARGE.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 143520, 8 June 1911, Page 8

WILD BEASTS AT LARGE.

THRILLING INCIDENTS. NEW YORK, May 29. i Coney Island, America’s great playground, was on Friday the scene of a lire by which the lives of thousands of people were jeopardised, and damage was done to the amount of £600,000. ■ More sensational than the fire, itself, however, were some, of the incidents that followed the outbreak. - The horde of wild animals that broke loose roared and screamed as they went careering madly through the streets, scaring peal pie out of their lives. Tho’police had an exciting chase after a lion, which was pursued a great distance before it was shot and finally dispatched Ify having its head split open with -an axe. A more thrilling encounter was that with a huge baboon,, which .was slain just as it was rearing itself to grip a fireman. One hundred an. fifty' animals that were liberated from Bostock’s show in ‘’Dreamland” were all cremated. The fire started in the'Hell’s Gate scenic railway, and swept over fifteen acres before the brigades bad gained the upper band. ‘‘Dreamland,” the most famous of all tho attractions, at Coney Island, and twenty other shows wore, all destroyed, and none of tho losses aro adequately covered by insurance.