Tazewell Republican. [volume] (Tazewell, Va.) 1892-1919, 1902-06-26
The Over Educated
Whale
The Ancient Mariners Theory Of the
Kathleen's Loss.
n1AR, dear, that's too bad," MUIR
Injured the Ancient Mariner,


ture YOU can't expect anything else.
"What is it? Why, this here case of
the whaling bark Kathleen that was
rammed and sunk by sperm whale,
leaving the crew and the shippers
wife and the shippers wife's parrot
adrift in open boats with no tobacco
thousand miles east of Barbados.
l feel kind of personal responsibility
for that there calamity; though Lord
knows it want my fault, for I done
all could to prevent it.
"Why do you suppose that there
whale went for that there ship? The
mate says it was revenge, because he
seen his wife killed.
"Rats! There amt but very little
sentiment about a bull sperm whale.
He don't respond none as rule to the
tender emotions. He don't go in Tor
chivalry like us-his motives is strict
ly practical.
"The whale rammed that ship be-
cause that was what he had been
trained to do. He wasn't % wild whale
he was my long lost pet Little Willie.
81 bet if I'd been there and whistled
to him he'd have swum up to me
smilin' and wagged his tail. Did you
ever see a whale smile? Well, just go
to the zoo and look at the hippopota-
mus through the biggest pair of op'rS
glasses you can find, and you can get
some idea of the effect.
"How do l know he was Little Willie?
How do you know a cyclone struck
town when you amt seen it? By the
results, don't. you? well, don't need
no more to identify my pet.
Of course there's little discrepan-
cies. The mate says the whale that
struck the Kathleen was 10 feet long.
Little Willie was 40 feet one inch
and three-quarters. But that amt no
fatal difference.
"You don't realize unless you've seen
a sperm whale in action how hard it
is to take his measure within an inch
or two under them circumstances. I've
known men to miss it by as much as
six inches-old hands at the business,
too.
with sea serpents it's worse yet.
Once heard lookout report a sea SER
pent $50 feet long, and when we got
him aboard we packed him into a mess
pork BARREL with room enough left
for a mermaid.
"The discrepancy about the weight
looks worse at first sight than the one
about the length, but there really amt
nothin' in it. The mate says the Kath-
leens' whale weighed 100 tons. Little
Willie weighed 1O3 tons 979 pounds II
ounces and three-eighths the last time
7 saw him, but you know yourself how
even people will lose flesh on poor
board.
AS long as Willie stayed with US we
always saw that he got plenty to eat,
but after he left us he had to hustle
for himself. I don't count that little
loss of three tons or so as any evidence
against Identification at all.
"Trainin' whales was Jim Kearney's
fad. There never was a greater genius
than what Jim Kearney was, but he
was reckless and sort of unbalanced.
He got the notion that trained whales
was to be the great naval feature of
the comm century. 1t made him elo-
uuent to talk about it.
"'The battle fleets of the future he
would say, is cruisin' by fuke power
through the tropic seas. They need no
eoalin' stations, no dry docks, no re-
serves of men and ammunition. Ma
ture is keepin' them up in inexhaust-
ible numbers for the nation that first
has wit enough to use them, and that
nation will have the mastery of the
sea-
"Kearney was so possessed with this
notion that he determined to begin try
ing experiments himself. He had bit
of a reef in the Bahamas that nobody
ever visited, and he persuaded me to
pc down there and help him.
81 tried to get him to give the thing
up, but you might as well try to flag
n Vanderbilt automobile with a red
necktie. He was just set, and there
wasn't anything for it but to let him
have his own way.
"Kearney had schooner, the Lady
Mine, that used to be pilot boat, and
would sail in any kind of weather that
flynn fish would live in. We cruised
around in the northwest trades for
awhile loOkin' for sperm calf, for Kear-
ney said that to get the best results
from education you must catch 'em
young.
81 won't bore you tellin' about that
cruise, though it would make mighty
good story itself, but at last we caught
our calf and h'isted him into tank
on deck. Kearney named, him Little
Willie, after a kid of his own. Then
wepat for the reef, which had smooth
lagoon inside of it, and was altogether
as well cut out for whale academy as
any place you could find in the geog-
raphy.
"Kearney's idee was to- use his
whales mostly for rams, though some
times for torpedo boats. So he had
harness fitted over Little Willie's head,
with, steel spur, in front, and he
trained him to go full tilt at an old
hulk that was moored for target.
Glow did. he make him do it? Why,
every time little Willie would hit the
hulk fair and square, Kearney would
give him a lump Of sugar. You,don't
mean to say you didn't know that