Connecticut western news., 1889-01-23

aS lllty tlIucS, III dll SoltS ol "Cd1ACi ,onu by day and by night, and yet he never met with an accident.
 I stated that no shark would bite him. He proved this fact thousand times | over Harbor sharks, for reasons best known to themselves, will sometimes pass swimmer by, but they are small | fry compared to the hammer heads and white sharks of mid-ocean. The true man-eater is not shore fish, except in tropical waters. When whaler is en- gagged in cutting in and trying out, and is drifting off before the wind, your real man-eater appears. I have seen them twenty five feet long, barnacled up and moss grown like ancient whales, and evi dently hundred years old. These are the demons of the deep, who will rush upon raft and upset it or tear it to pieces, and who seem to feel no pain from the prick of lance. We got whale to the southwest of Conception, hundred miles off shore, and Finch gave us his first exhibition. We had an eighty-barre fish lashed head and tail to our starboard side, and were just hook ing on to the first blanket piece to hoist away, when three or four monster sharks appeared. The one who came up astern was of such size that the men called out in amazcment. He lay with his dorsal | fin above water, and we could see every inch of him. It was enough to give you chill to note his wicked eyes and his awful mouth.
 When Finch saw this shark he said he would drive him away. The Captain or dercd him to go about his business, not wishing to loose man, but Finch waited until the officers were off their guard, and then went overheard off the lee bow with great splash. There was wild cry from the crew and rush with ropes, but Tom looked up and laughed and swan around the stern of the ship. The big man-eater had backed off about 20 feet at the splash, but two others, almost as large, had come up on the quarters, and there lay three of the wickedest fish in the Atlantic Ocean. Everybody shouted and gestured and half dozen ropes -ends were thrown to Tom, but he would not mind us. He suddenly sank below the surface and made bee line for the big fish, and, to my surprise, the old fellow darted aside to escape the collision.
 It is truth to the letter that Tom Finch drove every one of those monsters away from the ship, and for an hour he pad dled about in the water and was un- harmed. In the course of couple of hours the big shark returned. A piece of blubber was tied up in an old coat and dropped overheard, and he made a dash of hundred feet and bolted it down like flash. He then took up his station off our quarter, and not over thirty feet way, and the sailor mounted the rail and made a long leap right at him. The shark went off like streak, and we saw him no more.
 Once, when we were in the harbor of Honolulu, Tom gave public exhibition, and at least 5000 people saw him swim about among the sharks just outside the | f1omc to to be devoured, and gallons of blood were poured on the water to excite them, but never a one came within five feet of the sailor. He had no peculiar odor about him that we could detect, and why the sharks feared him was as much a puzzle to himself as to others.
 Among Toms adventures was his es- cape from the Greek pirates of the Egean Sea couple of years before he joined our ship. I give this because every par ticular of it is a matter of official record. He was one of the crew of an Italian brig making voyage to Constantinople, and on the return, while becalmed among the islands at the mouth of the Archipel- ago, couple of boats, carrying 20 men each, pulled out from one of the islands and attacked them. There were 13 men on the brig, and, though poorly armed,
 they gave the pirates a hot fight before the vessel was carried by boarding ] When Tom saw that all was lost he hid
 himself away, and was not discovered
 until the brig had been lowed into {
 cove. The Greeks had cooled off then
 and instead of cutting his throat they
 took him ashore to make slave of him : The island was the rendezvous of ba6 l gang and it seemed that a portion o them were away on an expedition. Fol this reason the brig was pulled into th'
 cove, which had very deep water, an | chored stem and stern, and her overhaul
 ing was deferred until the other party should return.
 Tom was the sole survivor of thu crew, and he was treated like a dog I1c Ildiet tt SiildtlellLsS, OI tlle ldHS udS e
 and he was told that any effort of his tt escape would be rewarded by burning alive. Nevertheless, on the second ] night of his stay he stole away from hi: hut to the water, swan off to the brig 5 boarded her by the fore chains, and find ing the two men on anchor watch fas asleep, he brained them with a capstal bar. The cable at the stern was of heml