The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-05-31
LOOSE IN LION HOUSE AT
 CENTRAL PARK

New fOrk, May 3l-FOr the first lime in A years leopard got the bet lion house. Hattie. leopard whelr z months old, worked her way through the bars on the top of her cage, and for a moment Was in a position to at- tack anyone of the hundred or more men, women, and children who were looking at the animals.
 Hattie's first notion was to have a visit with her mother, and she set off across the tops of the cages. She might have had it, too, had it not been for the keepers. The screams of the women attracted them from all di- rections, and George Sichert, the first to arrive, quickly shut the leopard in and shut the women and children out. Next he ran from window to window, closing them. while he sent another keeper for Bill Snyder, who was busy preparing food for the anil xnals in the basement of the Arsenal Building short distance from the lion house.
 ''Leopard's looser was the cry that burst in on him. Snyder at once grasped large canvas catching bag" which he had constructed especially to capture animals that crouch before they spring.
 With this long-handled bag in his hand he ran for the lion house and was admitted alone, while two other keepers came in after they found that Snyder was unable to corner the leop- ard himself.
 When he arrived, Snyder found Hat ite on the top of an empty cage, which she was kept from her mothers. The mother leopard was watching her ap- proach with solicitous purring and 4-meowing" as the leopard stepped from rung to rung.
 Mike, the puma, a large animal housed in a cage directly opposite, eyed what was going on and became interested.
 Dick, the father of Hattie, and Nick, a full grown brother Jay in cages adjoining that of Kitty. the mother. They too took an interest in the ap- preaching family reunion, and began to let themselves be heard.
 Snyder at that point interfered by springing up the side of an empty cage to the top, and rushing at the leopard with his bag, hoping to throw it over her head before she could leap. Hattie took one glance at the keeper and then turned tail to find what safety three was in fligh.
 At the far end of the series of cages was a hippopotamus tank, from which the animals had just been removed to an outdoor tank for the summer. The indoor tank was dry and it was a drop of 20 feet from the cage top to the bottom of it. Hattie hesltate ca on the edge. but the man with the big catching bag was close behind her, and she let go.
 "She took the air just like one of the blooming aeroplanes, and lit as pretty as a picture" said Keeper Si- chert in describing the event after ward
 Snyder with his sack followed the leopard into the hippo tank, and thought for moment he was going to catch her there. But she darted past him as he advanced with the big bag in front of him and leaped eight feet in the air to the top of the partition leading to the keepers dress ing room. There were plenty of dark corners there, and Hattie leaped from the partition top into one of them.
 Snyder finally found her crouched, and when he got near enough she sprang as he expected she would. But handling animals of all kinds in every sort of situation is the business of Snyder, and he has been at it since long before he handled a full grown leopard in a more serious escapaoe score of years ago.
 The leopard landed fairly in the net. and in an instant Snyder had pulled the top shut and twisted it over the handle so that she couldn't ma Ine opening and get out again.
 Splitting and protesting as she went Hattie was dragged past the cages of all her relatives to her own, and then she was set free, but within the bars that had held her secure through the seven months of her existence.
 Snyder and his assistants stretched a section of woven wire over the top of Hattie's cage so that she should not again slip out between the bars.
 "She was such a little thing" said Snyder. "that we kind of forgot she was growing and getting stronger and that one of these days she would go climbing up the sides of her cage to the top and slip through. The bars were almost close enough together to hold her-almost but not quite. In another month or two she will be per fectly safe inside 'em.''
 For five minutes after she gained her freedom the leopard whelp was in easy reach of an open window, through which she could have leaped to the general freedom of Central Park among a host of mothers with baby carriages and go-carts- She weighs 40 pounds and, in distinction to her older brother. also born in the park ZOO, has always been pleasantly disposed. while her brother has been sullen, and sulky and has quarre1ed with all who have come near him.