Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 February 1888 — A Diver’s Fight with a Shark. [ARTICLE]

A Diver’s Fight with a Shark.

A diver named Quintreo had a remarliable light with a formidable fish called the boultous or bondro, a kind of shark, which infests the Breton coast, at Douarnenez, the other day. Quintree had a narrow escape. The diver, an old salt, was employed by the Government, and in pursuit of his daily labor duly descended, in a diving apparatus, off the Douarnenez pier for the purpose of lading the foundation of an addition to that structure. While he was at the bottom of the sea the men who were working the airpump in the pontoon boat above were suddenly frightened by feeling the alarm signal. They immediately pulled up and brought a large boultous, nearly eight feet long to the surface. The marine monster’s head formed threequarters of his length, and his under jaws were of immense size. Shortly afterward Quintree came up, his hand on the air-pipe of his helmet and his diving apparatus somewhat damaged. When he went down to his work he had scarcely got to the last rung of the ladder when he saw the sea monster lying between two huge lumps of rock. He had in his hands only his stone chisel and a hammer, and he intended to go up for a crowbar at once, but the fish was too fast for him.

It came toward him through the green water with its enormous jaws wide open. Without losing a moment Quintree managed to wound the animal in the throat with his chisel, and then held it down on a stone while he drew his knife and made a hole in its body through which he passed a rope, and thus sent the fish to the surface. Had it not been for his quickness and dexterity the diver, owing to the rents which the fish would make in his apparatus, would have been drowned and then devoured. As it happened, it was the boultous that was not only defeated but eaten, for its body was divided among the victor and his comrades, who made a c&pit&V.bouillabaisse of its prime parts. —London Telegraph.

“WILLIE Waffrers,” said the teacher, “which is the shortest day in the year?” “Twenty-fust day of December,” said Willie, who was correct as far as the writer knows. “And Tommy Tuff may tell ns which is the longest day,” said the teacher, indulgently. “Sunday,” shouted Tommy.—Philadelphia Chronicle. “I SAY, doctor, was the surgical operation you performed on Monday last a success?” “A success? Why, I should say so. I was paid $250 in advance. ” “And how’s your patient?” “Oh, he’s dead.” A sign in the rooms of a hotel reads as follows: “Indian-clubs and dumb-bells will not be permitted in any of the rooms. Guests in need of exercise can go dcfwn to the kitchen and pound a steak.”