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About The Loup City northwestern. (Loup City, Neb.) 189?-1917 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 4, 1903)
TOWED BY MADDENED WHALE Boat’s Crew Has Marvelous Escape From Death—Experience That Veteran Fisherman Declares Satisfies Him for All Time. "Lower away the boats and p«t after aim! He’s a big sperm bull, anil too food a prize to lose!" shouted the cap uiiu as he rau on deck with his glass. The men of the Gloucester fi«hing tchooner Mary L. Betts sprang to the mats and clown they went into the safer. The Mary L. Betts is a lishing aoat pure and simple, but on her last cruise had aa experience which Thomas Marrow' of Boston, a long ihoreman, will never forget. “We were about one hundred miles >fT St. John’s headed nor’norwest when the man in the lookout shouted: “‘There she blows!’ be said, t had been an old New' Bedford sailor and whaleman myself and the familiar -ai! from above stirred my blood like the call to battle. "I was in the for’ard of one of the whaleboats, and it. came natural for ace to pick up the long harpoon and *!aud ready for the deadly work that ! had so often done In the tights with whales off Hatteras when I was a seaman going out of New Bedford. ‘ Our boat, had the lead by a long distance, and in half an hour we had overtaken the school and were draw ing up to the monsters. I picked out the biggest of the whales and ordered the boat, put over toward him, when nil of a sudden right in front of us me of them rose to the top and lay wallowing in the swell. We were headed right for his tail, and it was necessary to hack water with all our might to p re vest striking him across the fluke. I had seen such strikes in my day, and had seen the boats smashed to kindling wood in the twinkling of an eye and the men all Killed. ' The monster did not seem to no tice us, but lay there, opening his great mouth and squirting the water n and out among his teeth as they do when they are after a school of her ring. Ordering the boat about, 1 headed toward his nose, fully sixty nine feet away. As I drew up to him I had the spear poised aloft. In a minute the creature turned over in tne hollow of the sea and exposed his great soft belly. In the twinkling of an eye I had hurled the spear for a point 1 picked out just back of the tin and under the heart. "I do not know whether it was he ■ause I was long out of practice, or that the spear was dull, but. it only pierced nis flesh a little way. and hung there quivering. The smart of pain thoroughly awoke the creature, hough, and he went down like a shot. His great fluke went high in the air ind his head down, kiting up a torrent if water and splashiug the great tall town upon the flat surface within ten Vet of the boat. It nearly swamped is. It filled the boat half full of water and upset every man in her. “These men were not professional whalesmen, but. were Gloucester fish ermen. They did not know what to do and for a minute all was confusion, while the line was reeling out with a ■;harp twanging hum that told of a nighty power at the other end of the ine. My first thought was to get the ix in my hand and stand by to cut lie line when it reached the end of he reel. “Suddenly the whale stopped and ~ose to the surface a little way off. We could see the white of his foamy wake glisten with red blood as he oiled for a minute in the sunshine. “Half the men were wkily bailing put the water with their hands. hat3 uul with one or two wooden buckets. The rest were pulling toward the whale and still others were shouting irders. I think I was the quietest pne among them. All of a sudden the whale seemed to see us for the first ime. He came plowing his way hrough the water straight for us. “‘Pull! Pull for your life!’ I shout ed. ‘If he strikes us there won't be » man alive to tell the story.’ And .hoy did pull. It is wonderful what ’oree men can put Into the oars when heir life depends upon It. It was a natter of life and death, and they kuow It. We pulled out of his path, put the old sinner stopped and turned 4round toward ua with a mighty swirl. It was such a swirl as the leap of a rout might seem to a fly in a w illow leaf floating upon the surface of a pond. Again he came straight for us, out when he would have hit us with ais great Junk he went down suddenly and up on the other side of us. Then ne lay still. We edged up with an jther harpoon. "He seemed to be waiting for some thing to happen. "1 hurled the great spear with bet er markmanship this time. He tore away to the south, dragging the boat after him at a fearful speed. The prow went down to the dead level of the waves, and on either side the green waters rose three inches above the gunwale as it rushed past. I reached Tor the ax to cut loose, when I found that it was not there. In the excite ment it had gone overboard. “What were we to do? The line was playing out and would soon reach •he end and we should have to let the ,K»at be wrecked. My knife seemed like a toothpick in the emergency. "Suddenly the great animal stopped and began to go slower. But he held away to the south in a straight line. We could see the ship now about three miles away, making franti^ sig oals for us to return to them But »n* wuld not. The forenoon was half gone th . time, and in the horizon a cloud wis rapidly rising. It looked dark, like a thunderstorm. Things began to look ugly. We were being towed by a whale, and away from all help. I bitterly cursed my folly in entering the boat with a crew of fishermen Instead of experienced whalemen. "The other boats that had put out had returned to the ship, and we could see them slowly getting sail on her with the intention, we hoped of coming after ns. But the whale kept on. steadily putting mile after mile be tween us and our friends. I have often wondered how whales keep to gether, for here was this one going off on what was apparently a tangent and leaving his friends. *But all of a sudden right in front of us rose the other four of the monsters. They went up to the fellow who was haul ing our boat and made as if to play with him and then fell behind and be gan playing leapfrog in the water, sometimes almost leaping out of the water in their fun. And we were be ing hauled right through the school. One little blow of one of those great flukes would end us for all time. lowed we were blown far away fyom the locality, and though we cruised bark the next day, we never found our prize. But I am still lame from the force with which that reel struck ray left leg as the wounded whale tore it out of th» boat and wrecked the gun wale. I don't want another experi ence with a whale.”—Boston Journal. DIDN'T WANT TO CAUSE ALARM. Small Boy’s Caution to the Guests at His Mother’s Party. The mother of a smal' Philadelphia boy was giving a musical, and the youth had been put to bed even earlier than usual. The indignity rankled in WANTED NO BETTER PLACE. Surely This Illustrates the Limit of Patriotism. Sir Thomas Upton’s friend1 William Fife, the designer of Shamrock III., loves tils country profoundly, and he never tires of singing the praise of Great Britain. On his recent voyage over a num ber of Americans endeavored, in a humorous way, to prove to him Ameri ca's superiority over all other coun tries. Mr. Fife, however, was not to he convinced. "I love my land,” lie said. "I love it so well that I suppose, when I come to die, I'll be like old Pe A?griae Pagruas. the shipchandler. Old Peregrine, as he lay on his deathbed, hated to de part. He bemoaned ills hard lot. He seemed to want to live forever. " 'But, Peregine,' his wife said, ‘you are going to a better place.’ •' Ah.' he answered, 'there’s no place like old England.' ” The First Life Insurance. ‘T don't want to have my life In sured," said the business man to the agent, ‘ hut I do want to know how life insurance originated. Can you tell me?" "I can,” the agent answered, "it originated in 170*5 in London. In that year there was formed the first Some of the men stood tip and prayed, tile others swore, and one bit savagely at the line with his teeih. “The reel was tangled in the for ward seats and we could not stir it. Suddenly one of the whales ahead of us brought down the tip of his tail upon the lines with such force that it snapped them both and tore the reel and the seats out of the boat entirely, nearly breaking my leg in the mean time and throwing me bodily into the water. They pulled me out, a very i wet and a very mad man. and to our surprise, back came one of the w hales to smell us over. He came right up to the boat and blew water into the air as he looked us over. In ray smarting anger I seized up the lance and ordered the boat forward. He bad rolled upon his back and with all my strength l buried the lance in his vitals, being covered with warm blood as the boat withdrew. “We afterward found that tt was the same whale we had previously harpooned, aud it was because he was wounded that he allowed himself to be lanced. “A slight tremor warned us to get out of the way before the flurry of death should wreck us in its Intensity. We were hardly out of range when he began to go around In a circle, around and around, lashing the water into bloody foam. Then in a few minutes it was all over. He lay rolling In the trough of the sea. and the schooner came up and hove to a little way off. But no sooner had we got on board than the rising wind made it neces sary for us to desert our prize to han dle the ship, and in the storm that fol his infantile breast. Ho was very fond of music and besides he wanted to see all the people who were down in the parlor. He tossed and tumbled about in his be I and tried all the expedients to fall asleep, but it was useless. Final ly he could stand it no longer and he got out of bed. A bottle of violet ex tract on his mother's dressing table caught his eye. This he held above his head and allowed the contents to trickle all over his small body. When the bottle was empty he crept stealth ily down the stairs, reveling in the delights of the perfume. There was a lull in the music as he concealed himself behind a curtain and the guests were startled a moment later when a shrill, piping little voice came from the diminutive bundle of scented pyjamas. "If you smell anything, it's me." Changed Her Hose in Public. Passengers at the railway station at Old Orchard, Me., were much amused the other day by the performance of a young woman who. for some reason, desired to change her liose. She seated herself in one corner of the waiting room on the floor and made the change with neatness and dispatch, apparently innocent of the thought that she was doing something extraordinary. Several Varieties. “Here Contes old Zetve Crawfoot, reeling up the road. Wonder where he'e been?” "Why, he said he was going to town to buy a pair of susenders.” “H'm! I bet they wasn’t the only bracers he got while he was there.” life insurance company. It was called the Amicable Society for a Perpetual Assurance Office. It was a mutual benefit concern. Each member, with out reference to age. paid a fixed ad mission fee and a fixed annual charge per share on from one to three shares and at the end of the year a portion of the fund accumulated was divided among the heirs of those who had died in accordance with the number ol shares each dead person had held Out of this company, with its crude and Imperfect methods, life Insurance as It exists to-day hos grown. Did you by the way, know that emperors and kings can rarely get their lives in sured. so great is the peri! of assassin ation that they stand in?” Too Much Billing and Cooing. At a Hatigor, Me., theater the othei night the billing and cooing of a new ly married couple in the audience at tracted vastly more attention than thi high kicking of the ballet girls, until a heartless usher put ati end to tin fun and escorted the couple to tin street. Extreme of Red Tape. Dr. CSiilet, an ex-deputy, entered ttn carriage of a train conveying thi French mails to attend to a postoflic* ofllcial who hail been taken danger ously ill. As this was illegal he liat been lined $5 and costs. - Wnjr Babies are Not Seasick. As babies are accustomed to rock ing they are not disturbed by the roll ing of a ship, aud therefore never be come seasick “Yes,” said the gwbrrban Philoso pher, as he watehpd the growing youth of the village trample down his grass plot, “all the world’s a baseball game, and all the men and women merely players; they have tlielr in nings and their outs, and one man in his time makes many errors.” “That’s so,” said the next-door neigh bor as he leaned heavily on the handle of the lawn mower, “life is a baseball game and some of us seldom score. Kate does the pitching, and it is some times a swift ball that Is sent across the plate; one we cannot hit. and the umpire that silent voice within us that says ’Yes' and ‘No’ to all things, puts it down as a strike, and we go wondering and blundering along." “Many’s the time,” said the Sub urban Philosopher, as he brought out the family hose and began frescoing scallops in the dust, “we've been to bat and the ball wasn’t slow. The ball, you know, is opportunity in our game, and sometimes fate sends it fast and sometimes slow. Many times it is tossed to us as if some child had pitched it in play. We lay back with the l*st, hit It for all it is worth, and It goe$ right in the hands of s^me lucky fellow out in the center field of prosperity and we are down and out and back on the players’ bench with the sweaters and the sponges.” “And again,” said the next-door neighbor, as he carelessly tore down about three yardS of the trailing honeysuckle, “we do make a good hit, send the hall of opportunity whizzing along through the grass past the ser um! naseraan, burning the shortstop's hands, and we manage to get as far as second base. Doing pretty well, established a n.ee little thing of our own, got the rent paid in advance, em ploying a» bookkeeper, and putting money in bank and paying the inter est on all our notes. It seems so nice. Then we get ambitious and we know so surely that we can get to the third base. Increase the capitalization and make the competitor across the street look like thirty cents. We think the third baseman Isn't looking, and we do know that the whole world, including the family, is perched on the grand stand. We make the run, the base man sees us, we make a w ild leap ,iu the air, fall on the bag with all the skin knocked off our nose, blow the dust from our eyes, rise with a smile of victory, and then fall back to earth as we hear the umpire say 'Out.’ Life and baseball, it is all the same.” "But again,” said the Suburbat Philosopher as he pulled some stray weeds out of the walk, "we sometimes do pass third base and even get to the home plate and score. The crowd on the grand stand goes wild and we go out and purchase a ierger hat, come home and scold the children, and get mad with the wife because she does not seem to appreciate what a good man she married. Look at that fel low across the street with the freckled wife and six children. Been playing hard for years and never even scored. The last time he was at bat, made a foul hit and was out the first ball fate sent him. We got mighty proud over that one run we have made. It has tied the game and we have ‘no others guessing. Great players we in the ball game of ljfei Got the other nine work ing like sin to get one run ahead. The game is fierce. We forgot all about time, we are so busy batting at the balls of opportunity and making money. The sun goes down and the evening shadows come. We keep on playing. Wiiat do we care about the shadows. We have got to beat the other fellows. We must make more runs than they. V7e are going to do more business than the other fellow if It kills us. The shadows grow thicker, the ball comes fast over the plate, we strike at it, but we merely fan the air, and then that same um pire In a voice that is deep and aa'i calls the game on account o! dark ness and we are doso.” "Yes,” said the neighbor, as he took a seat on the bottom stop of the porch, "in the game of life as in the ball game after all, what is the use?” —Wells Hawks. Corn Valuable as Fuel Substitutes for coal have for many 1 years commanded attention and espe cially so during the eight or nine months in the United States when coal prices were at abnormal figures as a result of the anthracite miners' strike. Peat and briquetted sawdust, wood, oil and many other substances have been under consideration, and among them also corn, this last particularly having been spoken of as something quite new. though, as a matter of fact, corn has for a long time been used as fuel in the farming districts of the western sections of the United States, and that, too, with very satisfactory results. in a general way, it was recognized there that when corn was abundant and cheap and coal was expensive, the former made a cheaper fuel than the latter, although no scientific determin ation of their relative efficiency had been made until a short time ago. when tests were made by the depart ment of agriculture of fhe University of Nebraska, says Cassier's Magazine. These showed, among other things, that of corn, which, if burned, will yield from 22,512,000 to 45,024,000 units, not counting the heat that could he obtained from the stalk. Since a ton of good coal will give up from about 20,000,000 to 26,000,000 units, an acre of ground Is each year capable of producing fuel which is equal to 0.87 or 1.28 to 1.7^ or 2.50 tons of coal. The 'stalk will probably increase this amount by one-fourth or one-third. The experience gained from boiler tests with corn fuel made it appear doubtful whether corn would be a practicable fuel for the generation of power, unless it were burned in some special furnace that would insure the perfect combustion of the volatile mat ter which forms so large a percentage of the whole corn, and which is driven off at a comparatively low heat. Some form of automatic stoker would also be desirable, since the corn burns rap idly and must be frequently fired, making the work of the firemen very arduous, and at the same time tending to cause incomplete combustion by the excess of cold air entering through the fire door. Undoubtedly corn may, at times, be a cheap and economical fuel for domestic use. It is cleaner and more easily handled than coal and con tains but a very small amount of ash. It burns rapidly with an intense heat, and tills is apt to he destructive to the cast-iron linings of the stove. Here, again, therefore, some special form of fire-box, that will not be injured by the heat, and that will utilize as much of the heat as possible, should be used. Fitted for a Minister The high-school boy was delighted when the hoaors were announced and he found himself valedictorian of his class. He knew nothing about writing an essay, for rhetoric had not been one of his studies. He sat down with plenty of paper and some nice new pencils. He labored for two hours and chewed his pencils savagely. Then he announced that he had writ ten his essay. • First 1 said some general things about life,” he explained to his mother. ‘Then 1 took a quotation book and looked under the word ‘life.’ Then I strung the quotations together in a paragraph, like ‘In the words of Mil ton.' or 'To use a quotation familiar to use all.’ Then I took the class motto and preached a sermon with that as text. I wrote four pages on that. I said something about it and then I said the same thing in a different way a little further on. 1 studied all the combinations of one expression and used every one of them. About every six sentences I would repeat the class motto, so they would be sure to know what I was talking about. The last six pages I devoted to farewells. I looked up quotations for these, too. 1 raked up anecdotes of a whole lot of touching farewells. I addressed the class in feeling words, every other sentence, and I hope I make ’em cry. Now, ma. can you think of anything else I might write?" “No, my son.” replied the mother. “You have solved a great problem for me. I did not know what profession you were most adapted to, but now I shall fit you to be a minister.” The Puget Sound Salmon The man who lias fished for brook trout all his life is apt to think that he knows at least a little bit about fishing, but he has only been going to kindergarten until he gets in the game with a big, lusty salmon in the bright, new end of a September morn ing on Puget sound. He needs a fonr ounce lancewood rod. 300 feet of linen line and a large sized reel if he really wants to find out what a big salmon is good for. If he has never hung on to the business end of a rod while a salmon was doing ground and lofty tumbling at the other end. or has never been in the whale industry he wants to multiply all his previous ex perience by whatever number suits him best, for his work is cut ont for bias U>e minute that salmon Bad# that k the spoon he grabbed is loaded. Anybody can get hold of a salmon or any number of them by going out to the Bound In a rowboat as the tide comes In and any place in the bay is a good place, so no one can make a mistake until he hooks his fish, then —well, a good many men make a lot of mistakes from that time on because the^ cannot keep up with the antics of the party of the second part. That is the reason many folks want a 16 ounce rod out there and a lot of other things they think are needed to beat the game. They miss half the fun, theugh, for they do not let the fish have a chance, and Just fight him with tackle that gives him no 9how at ail, and think they arc having fun.—Field and Stream.