McNairy County independent. (Selmer, McNairy County, Tenn.) 1902-1969, 1916-06-30
NEW YORK !
LETTER.

Castle Garden, at the foot of Broad
way, has long been an interesting
spot. The round building was put
up more than a hundred years ago as
a fort. and the walls, nine feet thick,
were pierced for cannon about thirty
feet apart, looking out to sea. Mod
ern cannonading would reduce it to a
heap of rubbish in about an hour. 1t
was turned into a theater, and it was
there, in 1850, that the sweetest sing
err known in history, the Swedish girl
Jennie Lind sang to eager listners
and was paid the then unheard-of
price of $1,000 a night. or more.
Some paid as high as $3.50 for seat
and were glad to do so. Later on
the Garden was used as an immigrant
station, and the big round auditorium.
that once rang with the divine notes
of Jenny, echoed to a babel of foreign
tongues representing every country
under the sun. For several years
past it has been used for an aquarium,
perhaps the largest in this country.
Monsters of the sea. like porpoises,
giant groupers, green turtles and sea
lions, sport in the salt sea water kept
pure and sweet for them by constant
pumping with bronze pumps that are
not acted upon by the salt as ordinary
iron pumps would be; in the briny
waters Of the big pools set apart for
them, you can see the ugly forms of
the porpoises, some of them ten feet
long, their tails fashioned Pathways
and their heads terminating in round
shouts, swimming with majestic mo-
ton, or jumping halfway out Of the
water on their unwarying round.
These animals are warm-blooded and
suckle their young like cows. They
are valuable for oil. and the oil from
the porpoise jaw has peculiar proper
ties that make a demand for it.
The green turtles, weighing hun
dreds Of pounds apiece, are very lazy,
but there is an old swapping turtle
resting on that piece of log, his grey,
wicked eve watching your thumb,
which, if he could, he would grab and
hold on to till it Numbered ESQ they
used to tell meg. / also watch the
surgeons, nearly as big as man,
with interest; they lie on the bottom,
as do the giant groupers who are five
feet long or more. The black sleek
form of the sea lion, weighing
perhaps 1000 pounds, is seldom still;
his round, dark eyes watch for food,
and if you we're to thiow fish to
him flor doing which the keepers
would arrest you). it would not reach
the water before he would catch it.
When he gets really hungry, he has
a deep, hoarse bark that sounds like
dog with very bad cold.
The black alligators lie asleep, OF
crawl very lazily around their watery
pen, but there is an ashen-grey cousin
of theirs that has sharpened snout
and a cold, wicked, oh, so wicked,
grey eye that only pretends to sleep,
while he is watching you like a hawk
This is the terrible crocodile, "the
tiger of the waters" that every year
in Africa does away with so many
human beings. | would rather face
hundred hungry alligators than one
well-fed crocodile. Some of them
attain length of thirty feet, and
will snap mans leg off as neatly as
a circular saw would do it. | turned
with relief to the smaller aquariums
set in window-like places around the
walls, filled with water held in plate
glass tanks, behind and above which
the light came down, and in the cleal
waters, which were being replenishet
all the time by a bubbling stream
from pipe, all sorts of fish were
seen swimming. There were tn,
spotted brook trout, the tsutog, gray
ling, whitefsh Of the great lakes. cat
fish and even dog-Ash and alligato
gar-not oil together, BY any means