THE EOSHEEVILLE BEAR.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5581, 31 March 1886, Page 1

THE EOSHEEVILLE BEAR.

♦ Sonic time ago an amusing picture appeared in the columns of Punch, showing an infuriated bull pursuing a very stout gentleman. He had, however, if we remember aright, contrived to put a hedge between himself and danger, and was depicted in the act of addressing a reproachful remonstrance to his pursuer : " This to me, and me bin a veg'tarian all m' life." There was much force in the reproach, but base ingratitude is evidently not confined to the bull alone. Take the case of the unfortunate — or perhaps he counts himself fortunate, for Baron Huddleston awarded ' him JGSOO damages— Mr Wyatt, whose etory is told in recent London papers, and who, among many attractions of Eosherville, "fed the bear with a bun." The bear, having- presumably swallowed the bun, attempted to swallow the right hand of Wyatt, "and very badly bit it." Some four or five minutes elapsed before he wa3 " extracted," and his hand wa3 badly damaged. Strangely enough, the defence did not plead mistaken identity, for wo cannot but think that the bear only mistook the hand for another bun ; but the sapient Judge (this point not being before him, and what is motive after all ?) ruled that prison bars do not make a cage, at least a safe one, adding that the Arctic regions were the proper place for a bear (surely the learned Judge was out in his zoology, for the bear was a brown one). And the learned Judge's ruling seems to resemble his zoology, for it apparently is that anybody possessing a wild animal must keep it where nobody else can possibly get at it, however hard he tries. If that be so, as Mr Willoughby said, the Zoological Gardens might close their doors at once.