The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1890-06-27

ST. PATRICK ALL UNDONE.
In Festive Mood an American Show
man Turns Loose His Menag-
erie in Ireland.
The Snakes Multiply and Grow to
the Wonder Of the
Natives
His Satanic Majesty, Wrongfully Accused
ofFelonious Depredations, Exorcised
by Holy Men In Vain.

have appeared in that cou ntry, says the
Chicago News. It seems that about i've
years ago q Snowman M med Wilson came
from America with collection of living
wild animals. He landed his show at
Queenstown and gave exhibitions up
through Ireland with more or less sue
cess.
But one night at the little town of Am
raugh, in Tipperary, Mr.. Wilson got very
drunk and attempted to clean out his own
show. The oonstabulafy force sought to
interfere, and whether a. means OF self
defense or in spirit of humor know not,
Mr., Wilson turned all the animals loose.
OF course this created a terrible uproar,
and for week the neighborhood was in q
state of wild excitement. The Wild beasts
were duly either captured or killed, but for
three years no trace Of the den OF snakes
let loose on that memorable night could be
found. Meanwhile Mr.. Wilson went to
prison for two years.
Two years ago the people in the neighbor-
hood of Amraugh began to miss poultry
and pigs. Several vagabonds fell under
suspicion, were apprehended, and were
locked up. But the depredations continued
and finally farmers lad testified that up
on returning late one night from merry.
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q serpent making way with pig across a
field. The village priest took the lad in
hand and questioned him closely, but moth
ing could shake the fellows testimony.
About this time other people detected sim
liar fends in the act of like depredations,
spot was damned one and had been given
over to the devil for his diabolical practices.
Special prayers we're said and the devil was
publicly denounced, but the depredations
continued, and presently from Castelraine,
a town twelve miles distant, came word that
his satanic majesty had begun operations in
that locality, his victims in this instance
and in this place being sheep, not poultry
and pigs.
In this dismal emergency the bishop wes
most properly appealed to, for the parish
priests were at their Wits end and their
Practitioners were we'll nigh crazed through
fear. The bishop promised to investigate
the affair, but instead of resorting to con-
ventional ecclesiastical methods that holy
and sagacious man enlisted the services of
two shrewd detectives of Dublin, the intel
lectual center of Erin. The bishop fancied
that the devil was doing b is unholy work
by proxy--not in the guise of dragons and
serpents, but in the person of certain law
less characters too lazy to work and just
knavish enough to steal. The detectives,
laboring under this heresy, made their in
vestigations quietly and without holy water
or waters, and in the course of fortnight
reported to their sanity employer that the
depredations at Castleraine and Amraugh
had indeed been committed by serpents,
the detectives themselves having seen and
watched the same upon three distinct oc-
casions seize, kill and carry off their prey.
The serpents were described as dark of
color and fully Is feet in length. They
killed their victims by coiling about their
bodies.
The story was discredited by the clergy
and the laity until, as good luck would have
it, correspondent of the Freedman's
Journal recalled the significant, not to say,
purtentious circumstances that the numer-
GUS and divers species of snakes which had
escaped from the Wilson show about three
years previous had never been captured.
Then of sudden the mystery was cleared
up. and bands for the determination of the
monsters were speedily organized among
the vengeful peasantry. Three of the
snakes were shortly thereafter seen, pur-
sued, and killed in the bog east of Amraugh;
the largest of the snakes measured four
feet; in the NAV of eachwas found pullet
About month thereafter a fourth snake
was killed near Castleraine; this snake
upon being cut open was found to contain
very many little snakes which immedi-
ately glided into the grass and escaped
before the astonished rustics could appre-
bend them.
Subsequently, stimulated by the adver-
tised reward Of half a crown and special
dispensation for every snake, alive or dead,
the country people caught eleven of the
smaller 6nakes-nOne measuring more than
seven inches in length. Then the snakes
seemed to disappear, and no further dep
relations being noted, the excitement
gradually died out.
But it is now reported, after q lapse of
two tranquil years, that the snakes have
suddenly appeared at and around Ballingal.
an agricultural region 30 miles north of
Castleraine, the country seat of the earl of
Densloe. These snakes are of q strange
species; though none have been captured,
they are said to be of enormous length.
breadth, thickr ess, voracity and ferocity,
and to make a noise when moving like the
clatter of dice in box, they kill BY biting
and they have created great havoc among
the focks of his grace the duke, as we'll as
in the coops and styes of the peasantry,
Simultaneously serpents similar to the Am
raugh and Castleraine varmints have ap
peared still further to the eastward, and
have caused such panic that the country
folks are afraid to venture out of doors
after night fall.
The theory is that in five years the rep
tiles let loose by the wretched Wilson dur
ing his ribald and drunken frenzy have
multiplied so numerously that militant
union OF chuch and state will be necessary
to restore the island to the virgin condition
in which the good st. Patrick left it.
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