East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1909-02-08

was In the town I would have re-
venge for that act of discourtesy.
"Well. I was billed to speak that
night, although there was consider
able excitement on in regard to the
coming election and my talk was to
be on the subject of whales.
well, 1 had a good audience that
night and during the course of the
evening was telling about the habits
OF the whales and the manner in
which the young were being sucked
by their mothers. You know that
whales are mammals and that the
young receive their nourishment in
the same manner that a calf does.
The mother love in these monstrous
animals Is as strong as in any other,
and one way to capture the mother
is to first seize the young and tow
them along with the boats. The moth
er will follow near the young one and
there is no danger of her doing any
damage to the boats as she is very
quiet and will do no violence for
fear of injuring the calf. In this
way both mother and calf can be seiz-
ed without much trouble.
81 was relating this to the audi
ence and giving other details of the
methods of whaling and had almost
drawn my remarks to close. Before
stopping, however, I asked the audi
ence If there was any part of the lee
ture that they did not understand and
If they wished to ask any questions
regarding It.
At this question my friend the judge
rose in his seat, cleared his throat
in very pompous manner and said:
Captain, am a graduate of an east
ern college,
Judge Rebnked.
81 haven't any dout of it, I said.
There is no reason why we shouldn't
have college graduates in the west as
we'll as the east He may have been
a graduate of an eastern college all
right, but his knowledge of zoology
must have been sadly neglected for
he did not believe a word about
whales sucking their young. My
blood began to tingle and I wondered
what was coming, although I had a
fairly good idea that he was intend
ing to try to catch me in some of my
remarks and make me an object of
However, I replied as cour-
teously as possible and waited.
"'Of course there are a great many
things that I do not know about
at haven't any doubt about that,
either said I.
This made the judge fidget for a
but he said, Now, I should
like to ask you for my own informa-
tion'-tapping himself on the chest
bombastically-'what kind of a whale
suckles its young?'
ga female I replied, my chance
for a knockout punch having arriv-
ed.
"For minute all was quiet, and
then the audience caught on. Pam
demonium then reigned. The hats of
the opposition party flew in the air,
and men and women screamed and
laughed and the house just shook
with merriment The judge ragged
and fumed and tried to make himself
heard, but everytime he attempted to
speak the crowd would shout and
laugh.
"The lecture broke up then and
people began to go home and noisier |
mob you never heard. That remark |
became byword after that and as
The crowd walked up the street one
could hear the question in one part J
1f the town, What kind of whale
'uckles its young? while two or
hree blocks up the street the answer
would come back, "A female.
THAT incident caused the judge to |
ose his election and he has never
been elected for any office since. |
Whenever a campaign speech was at
empted by him or his colleagues the |
anne question and answer would be |
Haunted in his face until he had to |
give up in despair.