THE fabled alligator captured in the Thames some months ago has been surpassed by a hippopotamus disporting itself in the Seine. The scarcity of water has been so great in the Jardin des Plantes, that his majesty had been taken by his keepers to the river for his daily bath, securely held, as was thought, by his chain. One day, however, he snapped his chain during his gambols, to the no small dismay of the blanchisseuses [washerwomen] and steam-boat passengers, one lot of whom he threatened to demolish at a mouthful. Several keepers who attempted to board him were treated to a playful ducking, but after the upsetting of a good number of small boats, he was at length captured and hauled ashore. The poor brute must have thought that the good old times of the pre-glacial epoch had returned.

From: Littell's Living Age, No. 1371, 10th September 1870.