The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-01-07
BY WARD .NN72D1Z1R2

bers arrived at Westminster by boat. Every house, holder who was able had moved into the suburbs land is inundated with web?' was the question on everybodys lips and quite serious politicians were talking 8 of universal emigration scheme had been transferred to Southend, watched and waited. Wakefelds steamer was about due now. If Uncle James right, all would be we'll If not! Keith shuddered.
 1 Already Parliament had offered reward of fifty thousand pounds to anyone who could devise scheme for getting rid of the spiders The million aire proprietor of the Morning News had doubled the offer. Now it trebled by another paper. Now Parliament voted hundred thousand. Bays water-Kensin on-Mayfair-they existed no longer. Balloonists looking down on them from above; saw them as deserts and hills and valleys of hideous opalescent whiteness Web-web-web,
 Then suddenly one day the Morning News came out with sensational placards: "The Spider Prob Wakefield had arrived-arrived with a special steamer whose decks and alleyways were lined with huge cratelike cages containing thousands of Ham river and Keith and Wakefield travelled up to Lon- don in a dingey to make terms,
 As Keith had expected, his proposal met with skepticism. Whereupon he went to the editor and asked him to open the sealed envelope With in it was an exact prophecy-dated six months mans spiders had escaped in the metropolis. Hyde Park. They would make for the shelter of the park. They would breed at the rate or thirty thousand month. And nothing could kill them except their natural enemy, the Hammerbill of Java. There it was all down in black and white-and penned long before single web had been found!
 The evidence; read in Keith's presence before the Royal Commission, effective. When Keith further offered not to claim the awards until Lon don was clear of spiders his plea was inanswerable
 Carefully the crates were brought ashore; and in the presence of practically the whole of Parla- ment one of them was opened within short dis >tance of the central sea of; web and a hundred Hammerbills were set free. .. 3rff
 Skeptics shrugged their shoulders. But another case was brought and opened, and another hundred birds flew free Then anpther and then another When the last was reached Wakefield was pale penny of our ten thousand pounds This expedi- tion cost the deuce of lot; and didn't spare ex- pense. Pm pauper if those Hammerbills don't come up to scratch
 All the rivals of the Morning News scoffed at it's assertion that the spider problem solved Day after day they scofed for day after day passed and the ocean of web smaller. The Morn ing News retaated by pointing out that it lit
 Keith and Wakefield experienced unspeakable anxiety as time passed and definite results still hung fire. Professor Jackson, writing in rival journal, deluged them with ridicule. But-what was signifcant-the professor had no alternative
 At last! Some idiot at Putney had shot; a Hammerbill-and behold, in it's stomach found a mass of haIf-decomposed Horniman Spiders! ze
 England rang with the news-and Londoners nearly lynched the sportsman. Parliament held a special sitting and passed law making the shoot ing of Hammerbills penal onense. .ess lzs
 After that things moved quickly The Hammer- bills themselves rarely seen-but the. effect of web narrowed. as it fell to bits and died into rottenness. Whitehall was now free; and the whole of the city; then Picadilly was cleared, and the of putrescent web taken out to sea in light CTS and got rid of; path was made across St. Jamess Park, and there talk of the King re- turning to Buckingham Palace from Sandringham; Hyde Park, black and ugly came to. light again; gardens started work in it; day by day the news throbbed forth of fresh release.
 One by one the Hammerbills were found, lying dead-dead of starvation. Not a spider remained, and therefore no food. Finally, one was caught and preserved, special meat, diet at the Zoo To this day it's cage is place of pilgrimage for those who remember the havoc of the web and the awful period when London was enwrapped> in = it's pail of silver. skssf afStN
 {. And for Keith and Wakefield? Their scoop :. had come off, .sssRf tF fgs1>.s @ti2fs