REMOVING A GOAT

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 20102, 8 May 1935, Page 11

REMOVING A GOAT

POLICEMAN’S PROBLEM The removal of a goat from a roadway seems a simple enough task. A policeman at Kogarah, near Sydney, who had to do it recently, thought so, until he started to try. The goat, normally a peaceful animal, planted itself determinedly in the middle of a road and showed a disposition to defend its rights against all-comers. The first the police knew of this wilful flouting of the law was when an enraged motorist complained that the duco on his car had been damaged by a charging goat. A constable was ordered to remove the menace. He found the offender, a veteran warrior, who had been staked on a vacant piece of land. The rope, however, was long enough to allow the animal to wander on to the roadway. It looked easy to pull the rope, so the constable pulled. The goat did not move an inch. The constable tried diplomacy, but no amount of coaxing would move the goat. The constable chided, he argued, he tried threats, but the animal was unmoved. Then, when the constable had decided that nothing would induce movement in the stubborn animal, it was galvanised into action and gave him more movement than he had bargained for. In fact, it made a wild charge at him. The constable felt that the time for half measures had gone, so he drew his baton and brought it down with all his force on the goat’s head. All he achieved was a broken baton. The goat merely shook itself. The situation was desperate when the goat’s owner arrived. He undid the rope, and the goat walked off quietly at the heels of his master.