Shepherdstown Register

Circus Catastrophe—A Boy Scalped by a Lioness.—Yesterday morning, ten minutes before twelve o'clock, Henry Henning, aged twelve years, the son of Catharine Henning, who lives at the southeast corner of East and Ensor streets, was seriously if not fatally injured by having his scalp torn by a lioness belonging to Forepaugh's menagerie, which is now being exhibited in this city. The cage, containing a lion and lioness, was drawn through the streets in the morning along with the circus procession, and at the time the boy was hurt had stopped at the corner of Forrest and Douglass streets to let other cages pass on their way to the tent. As the cage was uncovered, and nothing separated the animals from the crowd but the bars, a great many boys, with the usual juvenile disregard of danger and desire for novelty, stood in close proximity to the cage.

One of the boys, thinking probably that as the animals were small they could not be very vicious, amused himself by poking a stick through the bars. Another boy, it is stated, found considerable fun in spitting at the lion, while others, emulated by this action, made bets as to which could spit in the lion's eye. Henry Henning, a small boy, was coming from school, and seeing the crowd, stopped. Noticing a boy acquaintance in the crowd, he said, "Rocks, why don't you stop teasing the lion, he may hurt you." With this, according to Henning's statement, "Rocks" pushed Henning towards the gutter, saying, "What are you afraid of? They won't hurt you?" As Henning fell towards the cage the lioness, now thoroughly roused, sprang from her crouched position to the bars and caught Henning's head with her paws. The boy being with difficulty dragged away, was found to be badly injured. His skull bone was broken, part of his scalp torn away, a deep ugly gash made in his forehead and another over his left ear. Police officer McKewen, wiped away the blood which covered the boy and took him to the office of Dr. Thomas J. L. Yeates, where the wounds were dressed. When he was dragged away the lioness licked the blood from her paws, and with the lion, tore the boy's hat, which had been pulled in the cage, into many shreds, meanwhile furiously roaring and rearing. The injured lad when taken home in his sad plight gave a serious shock to his mother, and it is thought the wound may prove fatal.—Balto. Sun of Tuesday.