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Show WHOLE TOWN IN . FEAROFSNAKES FIVE RATTLERS MAKE THEIR ESCAPE AND RESIDENTS OF PLACE ARE TERRORIZED. j BUSY MOUSE GNAWS AN EXIT Dignified Citizens Climb Trees and Fences Without Causing Comment Com-ment and Police Force Walks on Hands. South Norwalk. Conn. Five long distance rattlesnakes helped themselves them-selves to the freedom of the city, and until they are captured residents generally gen-erally will continue to do business from the tree tops. The fact that the unwelcome wrigglers wrig-glers carry an ante-mortem punch in every fang and are not of the sterilized museum brand has not served to reassure the populace to any great extent. Strictly speaking. South Norwalk is up in the air and will remain there until the snakes come forth and outline their future policy toward the natives. Up until recently the snakes occupied occu-pied a glass covered box in the window win-dow of A. W. Dreyfuss' cigar store, where they set up light housekeeping housekeep-ing immediately after they were brought down from Kent mountains by the members of the Schaghticoke Rattlesnake club. Answering to the names of Bill, Jim, Mike, Teddy and Alice, they appeared ap-peared to be perfectly contented. Mike and Teddy learned how to chew tobacco and Alice developed the cigarette habit, but aside from that no one could point a finger at them. Not. that anybody was very anxious to, because South Norwalk is a popular pop-ular railroad center and fingers are not any too plentiful. No one knows whether they grew weary of a continuous frog diet or objected ob-jected to being in the same company with stogies, but the fact remains that they sulked all day. A nice fat mouse was dropped into the cage to cheer them up, but they kept exclusively ex-clusively to themselves and Mr. Mouse got busy gnawing his way to freedom. He gnawed so hard that he loosened a board, and presently he Tha Police Force Is Walking on Their Hands. was acting as drum major for the escaping es-caping snakes. The flrBt Mr. Dreyfuss knew that 'a anything was wrong was when be approached ap-proached the store and saw one of his best customers sitting in the head of Powhatan, the faithful wooden In dian outside the door. The customer said he met the snakes as they were departing and that he broke all vaulting vault-ing records reaching the Indian's head. When Dreyfuss found the JEW empty he immediately got iii touch " A with the health and street depart ) S ments, and as a result "Look out for I rattlesnake" signs were soon plas-tered plas-tered all over the town. Estimates as to the number at lib- erty grew In size as the day wore on and the various intoxicants got a chance to get in their work. It was all right for the men, because be-cause they could fortify themselves, but the women and children were terrorized. ter-rorized. Such women as had to be abroad fastened their skirts around their ankles with rubber bands and took to the middle of the road. One old lady did her marketing in rubber boots. The police force is walking on their hands so as not to be taken by surprise. The spectacle of dignified digni-fied citizens climbing trees In all parts of the city grew so common as to attract scarcely any attention. Street Commissioner "Dan" Dun-lop Dun-lop and three of bis assistants got the scare of their lives during the afternoon. They were outlining plans for the apprehension of the snakes when a baby in a window overhead shook its rattle. With a single bound all four men landed on the top of a coal box, to the delight of onlookers. on-lookers. Later The regular weekly meeting of the town council was hld on the roof of the Icehouse, just Jjack of tha depot. |