Morning journal and courier., 1883-09-12
Snako-HandIing.
Strange Experiences i'm India With Py-,
 thons and C0bras. IFrona ChsnoharR1 Lonrnal.l

thons and C0bras.
 From Chambers' Journal
 Apropos of Dr. Stradling's interesting snake anecdotes in your Journal (Nos. s66 and 969A I send you a note Illustrative of the danger of handling certain kinds of snakes
 Out here, individuals of one sect of fakirs- religious mendicants-are frequently met with wearing young and tame pythons as necklaces. One such animal took the fancy of an officer and for few rupees was trans ferred from the fakir's neck to his and for some time both were on very goed terr' .,s One day our friend sat down to bre~ ,tfas with the python round his neck, .hino h, had never before done the tail # tbo o1j nal came across the arm of the. chair and in stinctiveIy coiled round ''s The 1everaot thus obtained seemed to revive it's memories ot victim-squeezing, and in a moment the omc'er was Tn tr1e bangs of strangulatiou, D' <uno 1ast 70 ais chair and the awful coil oi
 fhe pythCn around his neck. But in that supreme moment of horror appalling he re- tanned h1s nerve; with his left hand he seized the reptiles head and with his right grasped table-knife and was just able to inHict 8 Rssh behind it's head and then the suffocatine coils fell slack. The officer was afterwards found proserate on the floor in a dead faint, from which he only recovered to be seized with brain fever, the delirium of which was entirely occupied with encounters with mon. strous serpents. In course of time he recov- cred, but no one could recognize in that pal lid, gray-headed and careworn shadow of a
 man the once stalwart, hearty and enthusias- tic sportsman.
 Another note to illustrate the extreme dan ger of handling even dead snakes. Major Dennys, police officer in the Central Prov 1nces, was recently out shooting and killed 8 large cobra. His companion asked to see it's poison fangs, and Major Dennys, seizing the head with one hand, opened it's jaws with the other to exhibit the fangs, which, in the ap- preaching rigidity of death, closed on his finger. Aware of his awful risk, he sucked his finger and hastened home. But all assist ance was unayailing he died in three hours.
 l once kept and freely handled snake de- ciared to be lnnocuous; it escaped, and after much searching could not be found. Pres emily my boy ran up with tears in his eyes, declaring that his three pet rabbits were all dead; and, true enough, they were so, and quite rigid. Ooiled up in the hutch was the missing snake which my boy and I had so frequently handled!
 The handling of snakes is often unavoida- ply forced upon us by the extraordinary and ottentimes incomprehensible positions in which snakes are frequently encountered. We are apt to fancy that snakes are essen tially grovelling creatures, forgetting that their ventral scales give them admirable ia cilities for climbing. Unless you recognize this fact, it Is difficult to understand how snekeS get Into the TOOLS or up-country bun galows, which are supported by smooth and whitewashed walls and pillars how you meet them on the upper shelves of your book cases, or in other apparently inaccessible sit uations.
 But when you meet snakes in the act of ascending trees, and apparently with nothing to hold on by, you are resigned to your fate, and are prepared for sanguine encounters anywhere and everywhere. If you are lady you must not be surprised-as my wife was-at 8 deadly snake dropping out of the sleeve of your velvet jacket, which your ayah was helping you on with, that jacket having previously hung from wall-peg, leaving it three OF four feet from the ground. Nor, if you are going out calling, must you be aston ished if cobra looks in upon you from the double roof of your brougham. How did the one snake ascend the smooth wall and get into the jacket How did the other pass up the smooth and glass-like sides or wheels of the brougham and get into it's double roof
 might adduoe illustrations by the score of these strange rencontres, and they show us how we must always be on our guard against snakes. Yet it is marvellous that, among Eu- ropeans, we very rarely hear of deaths from snake bite. while the bare feet and legs of natives leave them frequently and fatally open to attack.