Skip to content

Cows Clean Out Tenement.

Two Young Jerseys Cause a Turmoil in Hoboken House as They “Gallop” Upstairs-Get a good breakfast and are Finally Led Away by Firemen and Police.

     Two gay young Jersey cows with a taste for stair climbing and a deep rooted aversion for the slaughter house raised all kinds of a rumpus in a big double tenement at 552 Newark street, Hoboken.

     The pair broke away from their masters, who were driving them to the abattoir, and took refuge on the second floor front of the tenement. It took the combined efforts of all the school children of the neighborhood, a company of firemen and the police reserves to get them down.

     A farmer from out Secaucus [N. J.] way was driving his herd of ten cows along Nowark street when the trouble began. At the head of the procession was a young thing, hardly more than a heifer, trotting alongside a matronly Bossy of several summers. The pair had been docile and phlegmatic throughout their journey, and the farmer could hardly believe his eyes when they suddenly began to cavort.

     They did, however, with a vengeance. Without any warning the fawn colored youngster let out one moo, took a hop, skip and jump and was galloping off down the street with the matron at her heels. The wide doors of 552 attracted them, and while the farmer was still tongue tied with amazement the two had turned into the tenement with a giddy flourish of their tails and without stopping to wipe their feet on the doormat.

     They clattered right on upstais and halfway up met a dozen little girls on their way to school. The girls screamed and fled before the unusual visitors. It took just about ten seconds for the whole building to get in a turmoil. The fuss and nonsense set the cows to mooing.

     The farmer arrived, breathless, to find the two skittish animals knocking on the door of the front basement.

     “So, Boss,” panted the farmer.

     But the cows only flourished their tails and as the door opened charged into the front room. A screaming woman fled to the fire escape a yard or two ahead of them.

     It was a work of seconds for the firemen directly across the street to roll to a still alarm and come rushing up the fire escape and into the hallway. But their red shirts only made matters worse. The innocent cows, that had never done an unladylike thing in their lives, suddenly saw blood and went crazy. They dashed about the tenement in a mad riot, upsetting chairs and the breakfast dishes and dispersing the firemen in short order.

     The refractory animals presently quieted down, and with the arrival of the police reserves things began to look brighter. A council of war was held. There were very few of the neighbors, children, firemen or police who knew a cow from a milk can, and the farmer was naturally chosen as leader of the posse.

     “Let me try alone,” he said.

     He entered to find the fawn colored heifer licking up a platter of breakfast food from the floor. After some persuasion the pair were led out in the hallway, but at the head of the stairs they balked.

     “Well, I rum!” he exclaimed.

     “Turn em around,” suggested a policeman.

     They were turned, but to no purpose. They simply went on chewing the cud of the breakfast food and refused to descend. The crowd clucked and whistled, and the farmer said “So, Boss,” but all in vain.

     Half an hour later it was impossible to ascertain who had conceived the bright idea of blindfolding the animals. The honor was claimed by several hundred persons. But, at any rate, the idea worked, and the cows walked out blindfolded as if they had never erred from the straight and narrow way.

Post a Comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.