The Tri Weekly Standard

ADVENTURE WITH A SNAKE.—The Avoca Mail—an Australian paper—tells this story:

A somewhat remarkable case of presence of mind in a female occurred near the township on Monday last. A young lady, desirous of a walk after the heat of the day, took a stroll, book in hand, along the western bank of the Avoca. Being deeply interested in the book she was reading, she heeded not that her steps had left the beaten track, and that, instead of the winding pathway she was wading through the long grass. Our heroine was proceeding at a very leisurely pace when she was startled by treading on something which gave abundant signs of life by a most extraordinary process of wriggling, coiling and uncoiling, all of which movements were performed simultaneously, and in so dexterous a manner as to be highly amusing to any person not an actor in the scene. Observing at the first glance that she had trodden on a snake's neck about an inch or an inch and a half below its head, and that from the position in which it was then placed it could not turn its head sufficiently to bite her, she bravely made up her mind to retain the reptile a prisoner until assistance arrived, and with Spartan-like courage carried out her resolution. In about twenty minutes time she was relieved from her arduous task, and the snake, which was nearly four feet in length, was speedily despatched with the thick end of a fishing rod. The danger passed, the fair stroller expressed herself none the worse of her adventure, although she declined to pursue her walk any further that evening.