Miscellany: Wolf

The hobby of Oliver W. Holton of Middletown, N. J., is keeping wild animals in pens on his estate. Last year his Italian leopard escaped but was trapped in a chicken yard before damaging anyone.

Last week, Mrs. Alma Mazza, the Holton's maid, heard screams where her Henry, aged 3, was playing on the back lawn with her master's son, Tommy Holton, aged 2. Henry ran in shrieking, "A big dog's biting Tommy!"

The "big dog" was playfully tossing the baby in the air and catching him again. It was one of Mr. Holton's two timber wolves; the female.

Mrs. Mazza kicked the wolf in the face, snatched up the child, fled into the kitchen, banged the door. The Holton's police dog, Trix, was in the kitchen. Trix smelled the blood. While Mrs. Mazza was making a bandage, the big dog rose on its hind legs, shoved open the kitchen door and ran out. The timber wolf, waiting outside, slipped into the kitchen.

Mrs. Mazza was not quick enough. A snarl, a grab, and again the wolf was tossing the child on the lawn, spanning the small chest easily with long, white-fanged jaws, shaking the small body as it fell.

Mrs. Mazza found a shotgun but no shells. Hysterical, she smashed the gun-butt down on the wolf's skull.

Mr. Holton later found his half-stunned beast in a dry pond bed nearby, and slew it with a rifle. His son died towards midnight of a punctured lung, torn abdomen, loss of blood.

Voyage

When the four-masted schooner, Kingsway, left Pensacola, Fla., last December, bound for the Gold Coast in Africa, she had a new master, Captain F. E. Lawry. Also, she had a bitter first mate, Fred Mortimer. Mate Mortimer, aged 72, had boasted just before the Kingsway sailed that he was the original "Mr. Pike" of Jack London's story, The Mutiny of the Elsinore. When Captain Lawry came aboard to replace the Kings-way's Captain Chase, who had sickened, Mate Mortimer gnawed his oath-cracked lips. He, "Mr. Pike," should have had that berth. He would show this Lawry, this interloper. . . .

On the run from Pensacola to Porto Rico, Mate Mortimer told the crew what dainty chow was served at Captain Lawry's table compared to their galley muck. The crew grumbled. At Porto Rico, the ship's cook deserted.