MAD BULL AT LARGE 1923
Please bring own pen
From the Milngavie and Bearsden Herald
16 November 1923
A Canadian bullock, which has been enjoying freedom for almost two months on the slopes of Kilpatrick Hills, caused much excitement and commotion on the western fringe of Glasgow for fully two hours on Saturday afternoon. It appears that the bullock had escaped from Merklands Wharf about two months ago, and had made its way towards Cochno, on the Kilpatrick Hills, where it had a free range of pastures. The salesman at Merklands who had lost the bullock sent repeatedly several men to recover it, but apparently without success. In view of the outbreak in the West of Scotland of foot and mouth disease, special efforts were made to secure the bullock on Saturday.
Several men were sent to either capture the animal or to shoot it. They had driven it down from the hills as far as Drumry Farm, Drumchapel, where it again got free and made along the public highway towards Canniesburn. The police there were warned by telephone, but the animal, which had been greatly enraged by the attempts to shoot it, succeeded in passing Canniesburn Toll and paraded the public road towards Anniesland. On its way it held up several motor cars and made to attack numbers of pedestrians, who had to get to a safe point as soon as ever they could. At Temple, where the police had been warned of its approach, the bullock was surrounded in a park to await the arrival of a sergeant from Maryhill Police Station who had been summoned to shoot it. Before he reached the scene, however, the bullock again broke loose and doubled on its tracks towards Canniesburn Toll. It broke through a strip of woodland by jumping fences and entered Canniesburn Golf Course, where a competition had just concluded before its approach. From there it was chased to East Drumchapel Farm, where it was killed by a shot from the police sergeant's gun.