Knoxville Journal

Having Lots of Fun.

Last evening a half-dozen boys succeeded in getting possession of a horse, which they at once harnessed for the purpose, as one of their number remarked, of "having a gay time." They fastened their sleds together, the leader being attached to the traces of the animal, and after everything was in readiness the driver gave the whip to the horse and the train moved up Jefferson avenue at a rapid rate. The horse was stopped three or four times in order to add more sleds to the train, and when the last start was made, which was on the corner of Russell street, eighteen or twenty sleds were in line, their occupants shouting in high glee at the sport which they were enjoying, while the boy at the rear sang:

"Don't you wish you was me?"

Everything went on swimmingly until the railroad bridge was reached. Here a passing train of cars frightened the horse, and apparently knowing that he had masters his own way the fractious creature made a dash toward the curb, thereby causing the driver, a boy about fifteen years of age, to lose the reins, after which the frightened animal rushed up the avenue at a fearful rate of speed. The boys clung to their flying sleds quite bravely for a time, yelling like a band of Indians for the horse to come to a stand-still, but their screams only had a tendency to increase the speed of the frantic animal. At Miller's Garden the horse took a notion to run up Elmwood avenue, and making an abrupt turn for that purpose the front sled was capsized on the street-car track with such force as to throw the youngster who had ranged the "fun" into the ditch. At this juncture the rope which held the sleds to the traces snapped in two, and a confusion occurred among them by which all the boys who had not succeeded in dropping off during the run were scattered in every direction. Fortunately the boys were more frightened than hurt by their fall, but the sleds were, with one or two exceptions, transformed into total wrecks. The horse was finally brought to a stand-still near Croghan et. Detroit Free Press.