Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1886-11-10
SNAKES IN A CAR.
Experience of a Messenger Who Rode
With a Cage of Serpents.

"Yes, I've had some queer cargoes
In my time," said an express messenger
10 reporter. 81 have a horse in my
car every now and then. When you
are told that our company has carried
l2O horses since January /, from and
through Cleveland you will see that we
are not unaccustOmed to having horses
IN the car. | had an elephant once
Twas little chap and a natural-born
thief. He stole nearly all of basket
OF grapes. and when tried 10 stop him
he struck me on the head with his
trunk. 1 had white whale going from
New York to the Cincinnati geological
garden. 1t died on the way. I've
had tigers and panthers and lions ard
babies and everything. but the worst
cargo ever had was snakes. Twas
cold weather and We had to keep milk
cans filed with hot water around the
boxes where the snakes were kept.
There were Is or 20 of them. The man
who had charge of them really loved
'em. He was as proud of 'em as cat
tie faneier is of blOOded cows. He
came into the car and pulled those
snakes out of the boxes one by one and
laid the great Kissing monsters on the
floor. They squirmed about and darted
tlelr heads towards me until l was
nearly dead with fright. 'Ain't that a
beauty? the fellow would say, as he
lifted a writhing monster and held it
toward me. Its awful head swayed
back and forth, its tongue darted ont,
and thought my time had come. That
fellow kept pulling out snakes till
he had, he said, over 100 feet of the
finest snakes in captivity on the floor.
But they weren't In captivity, you see.
begged the man to put 'em back in the
boxes, and he finally did so. He closed
the boxes and went back into the train.
L sat down in my chair and assorted my
waybills. Then, after We had passed
Ashtabula, going east, took seat for
4 doze. L don't know how long had
dOZed when l heard terrible crash.
1t was somebody trying to break in the
car-d0or. My first move was to seize
my revolver. When my eyes got accus-
toned TO the dim light of the end of the
car, as 1 fixed them on the door, saw
sight that made me drop my revolver
and yell with fear. The noise had
heard was the falling of pile Of pack
ages as big python crawled over them.
Y es, sir; the snake-owner had forgotten
to lock one of the boxes, and the big
gest serpent in it had crawled out.
After knocking over the pile of pack
ages he changed his course and was
crawling toward me. Some of the bag
gage had fallen ON him and he was eyi-
IDENTITY in bad temper, for he moved rap
IDLY. l retreated to the end OF the car
toward the locomotive, intending to
open the door. As l moved backward
my loot struck some leathery object.
l turned, and great heavens! it was
another snake. lie darted his hideou5
head toward me and l screamed for
iioip. aIae snake at the other end OF
the car was moving toward me. l was
between two of them. Another was at
that moment crawling out of the box.
screamed again, but the roar and rat
tie of the train drowned my voice.
Looking fixedly at the advancing snake,
which some fallen baggage had injured
enough to make him the most terrible
of the two, Preached behind me to seize
poker that lay on box. My hand
came down on the cold head of the other
snake. L turned quickly about in time
to see the snake draw back its head as
If for spring at me. yelled again
and again. Suddenly the door at the
rear end Of the car was burst open and
the snakeman, followed by the engineer
and conductor, came running in. In
my fright had not observed that the
train had stopped.
"'Oh, is that all?" SAID the snake
man, as he dragged his horrible live
stock back and stuffed them into the
box, L thought by the noise you
made that somebody was robbin' of
you.'n