"The Wild Animals at the Park Have Broken Loose"

 

 

 

 

 

     On Monday morning, November 9, 1874, The New York Herald ran a front page story of more than ten thousand words about wild animals escaping from the Central Park menagerie (zoo) and terrorizing Manhattan residents.
     The story described the events of late Sunday afternoon. "We have a list of forty-nine killed, of which only twenty-seven bodies have been identified...incomplete list of killed and wounded...the list of mutilated, trampled and injured in various ways must reach nearly two hundred persons of all ages...twelve of the live, carnivorous beasts are still at large...."
     Police armed with pistols and rifles were on the streets of Manhattan hunting down the escaped animals during the night and early Monday morning. The at-large wild animals included a lioness, a Bengal tiger, a panther, a jaguar, a leopard, a puma, an elephant and a "desperate rhinoceros."
     "The leopard, after killing a little child and mutilating several women who strove to run before him, made his way into the enclosure containing the pelicans, the pea fowl and ostrich and killed all before him."
     A proclamation by the mayor (published with the escape story and dated November 1, 1874) urged all citizens to stay in their homes.
     Few readers in their panic read the story to the end where a disclaimer could be found, or noticed the early date on the mayor's proclamation. 
     The disclaimer: "Of course the entire story given above is a pure fabrication. Not one word of it is true...."
     The fantastic story is available on line at the Museum of Hoaxes.
Museum of Hoaxes--Central Park Zoo Escape