New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1889-04-10
A MIDNIGHT ENCOUNTER.
Deadly Encounter Between a Cat
and a Half Skinned Eel.

Deadly Encounter Between Cat
and a Half Skinned Eel.
ssBobbing'' for eels, says the New
York Times, is the favorite winter pas
time of Mr.. Jules Carl1er, who lives
between Ridge6eld and Fairview, N.
~, and breaks the ice that has formed
on the streams of the blackish water
courses that have their source in the
|tiackensack river and flow sluggishly
across the loW-lying salt meadows. He
'bobs' through the holes, with a bunch
Of worm for bait, and has been very
successful of late. His catches, how
ever, though numerically large, have
been composed chiefly of small fish, for
Dig eels, like snakes, usually lie torpid
ia the mud during the cold weather
and give their livelier little brothers a
chance to grow fat unmolested.
Last Tuesday, however, he pulled an
eel nearly three feet long out Of the hole.
The creature had probably been tempted
by the warmth of the water to cast off
its torpidity earlier than usual, and it
aWoke ravenously hungry. It had TAX
en- the s'bob,' and was with difficulty
dislodged. Mr.. Carker carried it home
and finding that it was to all appear
ance lifeless when he laid it down on
the kitchen-table, he proceeded to skin
it. He made a circular incision around
the neck and drew the knife some
inches down the body. Then he
changed his mind and decided not to
skin the eel until morning.
About midnight Mr.. Carker was
aroused by his wife vigorously pinching
him and telling him that robbers were
in the house. He attempted to argue
with her as to the improbability of in
telligent and cautious burglars in pur-
suit OF their calling making such a
racket as was in progress down stairs,
but she replied emphatically and with
reckless disregard for grammar: eff
its not robbers, what is it:?" And as
he didn't know, he partly dressed him
self and went down to find out
The noise evidently came from the
pantry, and thither Mr.. Carker went,
trembling with cold, but firm Of pur-
pose, and carrying a lamp in one hand
and the kitchen stove-lifter in the other.
AS he opened the door he saw some
thing that fired his blood and caused
him to stand quite still and watch the
I, hull
from amazement. The big eel was en-
gagged in a deadly conflict with the
house cat. Puss had entered the
pantry in search Of supper, and, like
her master, supposed the motionless
thing on the shelf to be lifeless. She
had swallowed about twelve inches of
the tail end of the delicacy before she
discovered her mistake. The eel could
stand being skinned but it could not
tamely submit to deglutition. It was
worth two dead fish yet, and, awaking,
it made fierce resistance.
The eel turned and struck at its
assailant after the manner Of snake,
but it could not disengage its tail. One
combatant was slowly being checked to
death, while the other was dying by
inches of laceration and general unfit
ness for the situation in which it found
itself. Cats are proverbially tenacious
Of life, but so are eels. Greek had met
Greek, and, in the tug-of-war that
followed, something had to give way.
The cells skin yielded first. Already
loosened by Mr. Carker's knife, it fail
ed to bear the strain placed upon it,
and, with a cracking sound, the fish
and its hide parted company.
The cat bounded away with her
opponents outer covering trailing
from her mouth, and has not been seen
since. Mr.. Carker thinks that, real
izing that she had bitten off more than
she could swallow, she went to die
secretly of modification. The eel, free
but naked, died about two hours after
the battle on the pantry shelf. Mr..
Carker offered in evidence its skinned
carcass in support OF the truth of the
story he tells.