The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1898-04-30
UNCLE JIM'S TALES.
Strange Stories Of the Passaic's
Wonders Tax the Hear
ers' Credulity

SIS it true. Uncle Jim. that whales used
to come up the river as far as this p asked
| the Suction Pump as the old man sat
| warming his hands in the bridge shanty.
CAS- fur as Belleville? Yes, and plum
up to the dam at Passaic. Lots Of EN-
| whales, and pauperses, and seals and
! and sharks-schools and schools
of EN-"
ANY grampuses ?" asked the pump.
s~Grampuses,'' said uncle Jim ,hesitating
| for a moment; well, / don't know that I
ever see a live bus I'll tell you
what I did see right here below on the
| Second river reef. I see a herd of sea
cows with their bulls and ealves,a-rampin'
, and a-tcaring through the shallow water
! to escape from a school of pig fish that
was tuskin' them right and left. Ever see
| a pig fish? Well, you never Will no more,
cause they'm extinct. I hain't ketched
none senet 1 was a boy. They had rooty
noses for all the world like a pig, brussels
| on their backs and tushes two inches long
or more, and sharper thar a black locus
| thorn. They'd get under the sea cows,
outer reach of their horns, and slash and
cut 'em with the tushes. Pig fish was holy
| terrors to anything that swum, 'cept the
| file fish. Yes, the file fish ulster come up
| the river, too, in old times, when the water
| was all salt up to Dundee dam, and then
| the pig fish had to run, I kin tell We. The
file fish would get after them and file off
their tushes, so they wouldn't dror blood.
| and blood was what the pig fish lived on.
I read some time ago about some folks
| discovering file fish out in deep water, but
in my time they used to come right up the
river. They was mighty mischievous, too,
and seemed to use their files in the most
n~onsensical and reckless manner. My great
uncle, Anthony Smallbones, had a sloop
load Of bricks anchored off Devaney,s
dock one night, when I was a boy, and in
the night she foated down stream and
went kersmash into the bridge. Coming
to look into the matter, they und that
the file fish had cut the burr eff the
| riveted pin in the shackle of the anchor
and got a hammer head shark to knock
the pin out, so that the anchor was left
laying in the mud on the bottom of the
river. That's only one thing that file fish
did. They was allus up TO some kind of
mischief. filing telegraph cables. rudder
cantles. or suthin' that wasn't doin' them
! no harm. The only sensible use I ever
heard of them being put to was sharpen
ing saw fishes teeth. Old sailors used
to say hat was what they were made
for"
"Ever see a saw fish in the river here?,
asked the pump.
ibid 7? Deed I did, lots of them. They
was allus around when the file fish was
here. You see, there used to be a lot of
rock fish in the river, and the saw fish
come after them. The rock fish was big.
and saving them UP so as to eat them
kinder dulled the saw fishes saws, n
| they had TO have the file fish handy to
| sharpen them on. Once / see something
you won't hardly believe when / tell it.
A big bull whale was a bossing things in
the river. and seemed to be partickerly
hard on a younger bull that allus tried to
git away from him.
This day the young whale got drove
into a corner. and the big Teller bit and
chawed him bad. Now, what does the
young whale do but sneak around behind
a big sword FISH and swaller him whole.
! all but about six feet of sword. which he
left sticking out of his mouth. The young
whale then backed up to where the old
bull whale was and ketched him a slap
; bully was blinded for a moment, and when
he gat ready to rush at the young one he
found himself ND against suthin' wuss
| than a barb wire fence. The young whale
had whipt round in the water and was
comm on with a full head Of steam and
the throttle wide open. Rip, he went
across the old whales spinal collum with
| his borrowed cross-cut saw, and rip. he
under the old whales guzzle. It was all
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