Julia, the ferocious “snarling lioness,” billed as one of the most terrifying features of the Firemen’s Carnival in Mount Vernon, N. Y., escaped from her cage the other night when she sneezed and blew out two of the many half-inch bars forming the front of her den.
Fortunately it was three o’clock in the morning, at which times nothing is out in Mount Vernon but the street lamps and the downtown dogs. Of these latter Julia partook sparingly, as will be seen.
When Julia was brought here in connection with the effort to raise funds for Hose Truck No. 2, her fierce, untamed conduct, coupled with the fact that she was said to have two teeth, made the firemen fearful for the safety of their friends, who, after paying their admission, foolishly insisted upon feeding peanuts and stick caramels to the evil-eyed man-eater. The situation became so desperate that Julia growled every time she woke up—about twice a day.
One night, when her trainers left her, she was over in one corner of the cage, yawning. As she had yawned every couple of minutes since she was a cub, nothing was thought of it. They took their dinner pails and went home, confident that they had trained her enough for one day.
Soon after two o’clock, one of the trainers, unable to sleep because of a presentiment that something was wrong with the Firemen’s Carnival, walked down to the wild-animal cage and looked in. Julia was gone! The keeper, fully convinced of this alarming fact, took his life in his hands and immediately jumped into the cage. Then he called for a bit of help at the top of his lungs.
The police force, who had been sleeping fitfully, responded as soon as he could get his helmet and shield on. When he reached the Firemen’s Carnival, the awful situation was finally made clear to him, and the two of[Pg 59] them, working in shifts, soon aroused the greater part of the town.
Julia was found cowering in the doorway of an apartment house. It was high time for her to cower, for it was found that in her jaunt she had eaten one of Alphonse Camera’s dogs, fell over an Airedale, which died of fright, and chased a black cat to its death in a heavy door at the apartment house which was swinging at an unfortunate moment.
While one of the trainers threatened Julia with a revolver, another got a box, and they shooed her into it.
The Firemen’s Carnival management say that the whole thing is a good advertisement for every one concerned—except possibly Julia’s trainer and the firm that made the cage.