Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1882-04-05
Career of a Man.Eating Tigress.
rom the Allahabad India) Pioneer

For more than year past a man-eating
tigress has sheen the terror and scourge of a
small tract of hill country in western Carnival,
which looks down across the Ganges upon the
sacred shrine of Rikhikesh. From first to last
she is said to have killed between fifty and sixty
human beings. considerably higher estimate,
indeed, is current in the neighborhood Last
year she became proclaimed offender and re-
ward of 400 rupees was set upon her head. So
widely infamous did she become that it is some
what surprising she did not obtain more atten-
ton from the sporting manhood of our canton
ments, particularly when it is considered that
her haunts were within two marches of so we'll
known and accessible place as Hurdwar Such
attempts however, as were made to circum-
vent her, whether On the part of forest
hunters and Others or natives, invariably failed.
Her Warlness and activity seemed to be alto
gether extraordinary. From some spot on the
hillside she would watch group at work in the
fields, and regularly stalk them by careful and
circuitous approaches; then, dashing in among
them. she would pick off her victim and in a few
seconds be down the side of one hill and under
covert up another almost before his companions
had time to look around. hesound of bamboo
cutting was SO we'll known to attract her that
that industry for the time entirely ceased within
her beat. OF course occasional failures are re-
corded against her; one plucky fellow cudgeled
her OH the friend she seized by his side with
tu1tt, bllu III uuOlueI Instance sue abandoned
her prey owing to the lucky circumstance of a
mouthful of the bamboo bundle on his back rail-
Ing to please her taste. But these were rare
exceptions to the monOtOnOus tale of slaughter
One Of the very last cases was par
ticularly painful one. A peasants wife
objected to go to work in the fields.
or rather cultivated terraces. pleading
her fear of this beast; the husband forced or
persuaded her to 60, promising to accompany
her and stay near her while she worked. She
was carried off before his eyes. People on the
lookout for this tigress with firearms could
never find her; cattle she never killed; to ele-
plants her haunts were inaccessible, and it
seemed clear that if she were ever destroyed it
would be off the corpse of human being or
the carcass of a langur the only animal besides
man on which she was known to prey. And so
1t turned out. About fortnight ago the senior
assistant commissioner of Carnival obtained the
services of dozen Goorkhas from the regiment
quartered at Dehra; these plucky little men had
only been day or two across the river, when
on the 9th ult, the tigress killed again an
other woman. They started for the spot in the
afternoon, four of them going along the hillside
in advance, while the rest of the party kept
along the nuah the tigress. startled by the
latter, broke in front of the former. and luckily
having her back broken by the first shot of the
v0lley fired at her succumbed without strug-
gle. Not only was the tgress apparently killed
OIL the body, but some of the victims fingers
were found in her stomach.