The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1901-08-08
Shark Was in a Harry,

II Shark Was in Il Harry.
1.-THE speed attained by South NJ
lantic sharks in their efforts to arrive
at desire points within the least pos
| sible space of time" said No. is, who
/ used to be in the navy, and is now a
clerk in the navy department, address
| ing the last meeting of the Washing-
ton Liars club, "has long been SUBJ
ject for scientific investigation. i
don't know the exact number of knots
they have been found to make within
the space of an ordinary four hour
watch, but if south Atlantic shark
can't beat an a'batross when it comes
to speed I'll eat my bag and ham
mock and ditty box. Now, there are
some sharks down in the south Allan
tic that don't like to find themselves
too near the equatorial waters, and
yet they want to have plenty of room
| to prowl. They've got the tempera-
ture of water that suits them best fig
rred out to nicely, and they know
that on the other side of the equator-
lal 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 a
dash across the line; that's all. They
know that the equatorial line is a
trocha OF water that's a heap too hot
for their constitutions, and that they
can't stand mon1eying around in the.
water on that line too long, and So
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 d line on the speed of
sharks when they take it into their
heads to get speedy. We got into the
port OF Montevideo one morning at 10
O'Clock. 1t was on Monday, April
-. Montevideo harbor is full O.
sharks, and the men forward got to
fishing over the side for them, in or
der to get their spines to make walk
ing sticks of them. One huge man
eater was landed after great 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 inside 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 exactly at p. M,
April 1.-THE day before we got into
Montevideo.
"The skipper of our ship reported
this fact to the townspeople of Mon
tevideo when he went ashore, feeling
confident that some prominent citi-
zen OF that town had inadvertently
permitted himself to be made meal
of by an epicureau shark. He natur-
ally concluded that the victim must
have been a prominent citizen to pack
such swell timepiece around with
him. Nobody was missing out of the
population of Montevideo and the
thing looked almighty mysterious.
! well, we remained in the harbor of
Montevideo for six weeks, making re-
pairs, and in that time the shark and
watch incident was practically for
gotten. We were just upon the point
of pulling out for northern waters.
when the British ship Cardiff, from
Pernambuco, Brazil, put into Monte
!video. The Cardiff's mate was in COM
tmand, and he had queer story to tell
lof how the command had! fallen to
him. It seems that on April IL the
skipper, returning to the ship from
Pernambuco in his long boat, had
lslipped in stepping onto the float lead
ling to the ship gangway, and fallen
/ into the water. Before the boat S crew
had a chance to pull him back into the.
lstern sheets there was a swish, and
1.-The skipper was being packed off in
1.-THE jaws of gigantic shark. You'll
remember that this happened on the.
Iafternoon of April ii. Well, there
wouldn't have been any thing remark
i able about this if the mate in com
Imand of the Cardiff hadn't happened
to mention that The skipper had val
Iuable watch on his person when the
i shark got him. Our Commanding Of
tfcer heard about this, and he looked,
up the mate and asked him what kind
lof a watch it was. The mate exactly
described the watch that; we had taken
out of the sharks stomach in Monte
lvideo on the morning ssf April IL, and
when our skipper showed it to him,
be instantly identified it, it
o,y, all that any body who doubts
this has got to do in ortler to find out
how many thousand miles Pernam-
buco is from Mont eviaeo is to meas
lure the scale on; the aliases Of South
4 America. That shark only hit the,
high places I'M jumping from Pernam-
Ibuco to Montevideo and If there's any
4 doubt Of this narration here pres
lent why, here's the sharks spine, =
and No. is Of the Liars club held np
II 25-cent malacca stick
The quarterly medal was then b.
!stowed upon No. IS by unaninaoss
II vote ~ y