The Newtown bee., 1880-01-14
Something of an Eel.

A drain on the Delamater estate, at Huntington, Long Island, was found to be gradually choking up, and at last it was deemed necessary to take out the gratings and make thorough repairs on the drain. The foreman devoted day to this task. He removed the upper grate, and began to probe the drain. To his astonishment, he found that the obstruction was alive; there was no other solution of the noises that came from the opening as soon as he began the probing process. He at once began digging the drain open, and in short time, he says, he succeeded in laying bare about three feet of a creature | which he thought to be monster eel. It was the tail, and it was so large that it nearly filled the drain. He grasped it with his hands, and tried to pull it out; but the creature slowly drew away from him, and seemed about to disap- pear in the drain. He picked up a stick, and gave the creature a sharp blow; but it continued to draw itself into the hole. Quickly grasping an old axe, the foreman chopped off some two feet of the tail, determined to ob- tain a specimen of the creature that was obstructing the drain.
 "As soon as had hacke, off the ami malls tail" said the foreman, "the thing beg n backing out of the hole. l waited till he had run about two feet more out, and then fetched him another clip with the axe, cutting off a section of him. You see had no idea how long he was gc ing to continue sh9ving himself out, and knew that if 1 didn't let him get more than two or three feet out of the hol at me at once, I could keep even with him unless the axe gave out Well, when cut off the second piece the animal seemed to be provoked like, and he backed out faster than Def re. l didn't let him get far out before nit him another clip. This made him mad, :, and he began showing himself out of the drain as though he was determined to find out what was happening at the iat- ter end of him. For short time he made it very lively work for me. he backed out so fast. But reckoned that U back out, and so I kept whacking him up into lengths of about two feet or eighteen inches. The pieces I had cut of began to twist about, and it locked as .hough 1 had opened a volcano that was belching forth gigantic cuts of eel for frying in some great frying pa1.
 At length" continued the candid foreman, "the creature sort O stuck in the hole, and then the head part popped out. It was as big around as the hole in the drain, and the eyes were as big as a sheep's. I had sort of curiosity to know about how much eel had cut off from the creature, so I threw the pieces into a hand-cart that I had brought the tocls out in, and wheeled them up to the house. Then I flung ,, them on to the ground, and after they had got pretty near through wriggling laid them out, end to end, and measured the length of them. They measured a little short of twenty feet, but some oi | the pieces didn't lay quite straight, you see. think when the creature stretched | himself he must have been fully twenty feet long or upward. That drain has been closed up at both ends about fifteen years, and this eel has been growing all that time. No wonder he grew to a good size. The stuff in drains is what eels grow fat on. They grow pretty good-sized under the wharves and in such places; but there is no place like a drain for an eel.-Nea0 York Sun.