Evening star., 1899-04-01
SHARK WAS IN A HURRY


sharks in their efforts to arrive at desired
points within the least possible space of
time" said No. Is, who used to be in the
navy, and is now a clerk in the Navy De-
pc rtment addressing the last meeting of
the Washington Liars Club, has long
been subject for scientific investigation.
l don't know the exact number of knots
| they have been found to make within the
sEace of an ordinary four-hour watch, but
if a south Atlantic shark can't beat an al
batross when it comes to speed I'll eat my
bag and hammock and ditty box. Now,
there are some sharks down in the south
Atlantic that don't like to find themselves
tco near the equatorial waters and yet
they want to have plenty of room to prowi.
They've got the temperature of water tha t
suits them best figured out to nicely, and
they know that on the other side of the
equatorial line there's just as good water,
and water Of the same degree of tempera-
ture as that in which they're fooling
around when they get to thinking on this
subject Well, what do they do when they
get to worrying over the cramped space in
which they find themselves on one side of
the line or the other? Why, they just
make dash across the line; that's all.
They know that the equatorial line Is a
trocha of water that's heap too hot for
their constitutional and that they can't stand
monkeying around in the water on that line
too long, and they just hop over it,
licketty-cut, so fast that you can't see
their fins for dust.
Il remember once, when I was on the old
Ticonderoga, thing happened that gave
US a line on the speed of sharks when they
take it into their heads to get speedy. We
got into the port of Montevideo one NOM
ng at 10 O'Clock. 1t was on a Monday,
April II. Montevideo harbor is full o.
sharks, and the men forward got to fishing
over the side for them, in order to get their
spines to make walking sticks Of them.
Ono hllcra for 1on 1oI
difficulty, with the combined strength of
the whole watch, on deck, and he had to be
dubbed with Delaying pins and capstan
bars for an hour before he gave up and
cashed in. Well, We cut him open, and,
gentlemen. what do you suppose we found
ii side of him? Why, as fine a gold watch
and chain as ever you saw in your lives.
Not an ordinary minute and secondhand
watch, but one of those watches that give
the date, the day of the week, the phases
of the moon and the whole thing. Well,
sirs you can imagine our establishment
when we snapped the case of this watch
open and found that it had stopped ex-
actly at pm, April 1.-THE day before we
got into Montevideo.
'The skipper of our ship reported this
fact to the townspeople of MonteviGeo when
he went ashore, feeling confident that some
prominent citizen of that town had ind
vertently permitted himself to be made a
meal OF by an epicurean shark He natural
ly concluded that the victim must have
swell timepiece around with him. Nobody
was missing out OF the population of Monte
video, and the thing looked almighty mys-
terious.
"Well. we remained in the harbor of
Montevideo for six weeks, making repairs,
and in that time the shark and watch in
cident was practically forgotten. We We're
just upon the point of pulling out for north
ern waters when the British ship Cardiff,
from Pernampuco, Brazil, put into Monte
video. The Cardiff's mate was in command,
and he had a queer story to tell of how
the command had fallen to him. 1t seems
that on April IL the skipper, returning to
the ship from Pernambuco in Ms long boat,
had slipped in stepping onto the float lead
ing to the ships gangway, AMI fallen into
the water. Before the boats crew had a
chance to pull him back into the stern
sheets there swish, and the Skipper
was being packed off in the jaws of a gigan-
tic shark. You'll remember that this hap
pened on the afternoon of April II. Well,
there wouldn't have been anything remark
able about this If the mate in command of
the Cardiff hadn't happened to mention
| that the skipper had a valuable watch on
his person when the shark got him. Our
commanding officer heard about this and
he looked up the mate and asked him what
kind of watch it was. The mate exactly
described the watch that We had taken out
of the sharks stomach in Montevideo ON
the morning of April II, and when our skip
per showed It to him he instantly identi-
fed 1t.
Now, all that anybody who doubts this
has got to do in order to find out how many
Thousand miles Pernambuco is from Monte
vldeo is to measure the scale on the aliases
OF South America. That shark only hit the
high places in jumping from Pernambuco
| to Montevideo, and if there's any doubter
of this narration here present why here
| the sharks spine,' and No. Is of the Liars
CLUB held up a 25-cent malacca stick
The quarterly medal was then bestowed
| upon No. is by unanimous vote.