Bennington semi-weekly banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 1894-1902, 1895-07-19
FOUGHT AN OCTOPUS.
A VERACloUS SKIPPER TELLS OF AN
ENCOUNTER WITH A MONSTER.

Tentacles Wound on the Wlndlass-The
Monster Hit Porpoise and Was Set
Upon by a Boxing School, Which Finished
Him.
Captain Obadiah Donaldson has piled
the waters of the sound for years and
years, and no one has ever accused him OF
telling lie. If any ono else but Captain
Donaldson had steamed into port with the
yarn that he brought to Bridgeport Conn,
the other day, he would have been publicly
scoffed at. But Captain Obadiah has said
it, and it goes.
He came into harbor with bis steam oys.
ter dredger, which Is cross between a
tugboat and mud scow, in search of coal
Five of his sailors then landed with thin
substance looking very much like 100 feet
Of fire hose. This they laid out on the
wharf. Sea dogs assembled In convention
over it, but shook their heads nonplused,
being unable TO make 1t out at all. Then
Captain Donaldson spake in these words:
"That," said he, 'is the arIf~of an octo.
pus, which can be easily verified. take
1t that it's 100 feet long now, being as it's
shrunk, but it was twice that length when
we caught 1t.
1.-THE fight In which we got 1t occurred
shortly after 10 o'clock this morning We
Were steamng five miles off Stratford
light, were going four knots an hour, and
we were in Is fathoms Of water. was
heading east by southeast two points, and
the wind was blowing north by northwest
seven points, all of which can be verified
Suddenly on the starboard bow 800
feet ahead 1 spied huge mass black and
motionless, lying on the surface Of the wa
ter, which was as smooth as a pond.
changed my course one point and rang the
bell for full head Of steam in order to
bury up and see what the black thing
was. soon made it out as an octopus, 60
feet in diameter, with arms and legs a
couple Of hundred feet long.
81 didn't want any of that in mine. I
brought the wheel down to clear the mon
ster. He, was in deep sleep, and his
SHORES could be heard quito a way off. But
Twas too late. The boat struck him amid
ships. He awoke in jiffy. At first he
thought we were nightmare, but he rub
bed his eyes and identified us as enemies,
though heaven knows had no wish to
fight him.
He darted at us, kicking up the sea-
One Of his long arms came aboard and
seized the forward steam windlass. He
wound his arm around it, thinking, I sup
pose, that it was u sailor. The mate, with
great presence of mind started the wind.
lass, and in less time than it takes to tell
it couple of hundred feet of the arm was
wound in, and we had the fish prisoner.
"But we'd caught Tartar He began
to pull at the boat, and 1 was afraid he
meant to sink 1t and cat us at his leisure.
The vessel rocked, and thought she would
Capsize every minute. 1 called to Frank
Taylor, the boatswain, to cut off the arm,
and he did SO with o meat chopper.
"The octopus, thoroughly aroused swan
half mile to leoward and crouched for a
spring, but suddenly a distraction &C.
CURED. Three porpoises came along, the
pilot porpoise leading. He ran right into
tho arms of the octopus, who seized him
and held him high in the air and squeezed
the life out of him. We could hear his
bones crunching. Having killed the poor
porpois9 in his rage, no tossed him high in
the air.
1.-THE other porpoises at once turned tail
and swan TO Pen1eld Reef light, favor
tie feeding ground of these fish They re-
turned with an enormous swarm of por-
poises, all greatly excited and gnashing
their teeth. The chums of the murdered
porpoise evidently had made a speech to
them and got them worked up. They
lined up like football players and made a
combined rush for the octopus, who gazed
at them viciously with his cruel, Shiny
eyes. twas an awful battle that followed.
1.-THE sea was dashed into q crimson