A Flying Symbol

The inexperienced guard turned his back, and in a trice the 6-ft. Finnish prisoner was gone, lost in the foliage of London's Regent's Park. Though an official spokesman insisted "he's not dangerous," all London was alarmed, and telephone switchboards were soon jammed by the tipsters and the fearful. Gawkers flocked to the park by the thousands as the dragnet began to tighten. Radio trucks and prowl cars moved in, and giant searchlights were brought up to illuminate the park at night.

As the chase grew more dramatic, so did the front-page headlines in the British press. The Daily Express ran a picture of the fugitive's spouse under an eight-column banner, THE LITTLE WOMAN WHO WAITS. When the escapee was seen on the grounds of U.S. Ambassador David Bruce's residence, the Daily Mirror headline fluttered, NOW GOLDIE CALLS ON UNCLE SAM FOR HELP.

Murder in the Park. What everyone feared finally happened on the fugitive's sixth day of freedom. GOLDIE TURNS KILLER! screamed the Daily Express. Worse still, the killer had eaten the victim. It was a Muscovy duck that had been swimming innocently in a nearby pond as Goldie--the Regent's Park Zoo's proud golden eagle--yielded to the demands of an angry appetite.

"We are very sorry for the duck," said a zoo spokesman, "but it is rather heartening for us to see Goldie get a good square meal." Goldie had in fact made an earlier stab at food in the form of Dusty, a Cairn terrier ambling with his mistress through the park, but Dusty fought the eagle to a draw. A snow goose would have fared less well had not spectators driven Goldie off.

The exploits of London's elusive eagle made headlines for twelve solid days in an extraordinary national preoccupation with what the Daily Mail called "the most celebrated eagle of his day." Britons sent in dozens of suggestions for recapturing Goldie: someone urged that he be brought to earth with a tranquilizing dart; another thought up an elaborate scheme to float a balloon filled with anesthetic gas and baited with thin pieces of meat so that the eagle's talons would prick the bubble, causing a knockout drop. Still others saw a profit in Goldie's exploits. Britain's wideawake malted-milk firm rushed out advertisements urging "Give Goldie Horlick's!" One of its biggest oil companies took a half-page ad to declare:

One thing's sure. In years to follow

Goldie's name will ring a bell.

For, in terms of dauntless spirit,

Goldie's in a class with Shell.

A Quiet Surrender. The fun was over on Goldie's twelfth day loose. Swooping down to feast on a rabbit planted by his pursuers, he let himself be quietly seized by the legs and returned to his cage, where his mate Regina awaited. "It's good to have him back," said a zoo official. "He is used to people and good square meals." Many a Londoner would take wistful exception. As the Daily Mail put it, Goldie "is the flying symbol of all men lost in urban civilization." Added the Daily Telegraph's editorial page: "Perhaps we are all mirrored in the behavior of Goldie, victims of the welfare state, tending to lose our self-reliance and mobility."

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