Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 186, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 August 1913 — STORIES from the BIG CITIES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

STORIES from the BIG CITIES

Hand Painted Crab Surrenders in Jamaica #ay

NEW YORK.—That there are stranger fish in the sea than ever have been caught is a proverb that will have to move along to keep up with a creature taken out of Jamaica bay by John Leahy of the Bronx the other day. Mr. Leahy has the reputation of being one of the best amateur clam diggers that ever plied his trade along Rockaway beach, but he added to his reputation when he caught the largest horseshoe crab the oldest inhabitant of the beach has ever seen. The crab, in addition to being more than a foot wide across the narrowest part of its back and fully eighteen inches long, not counting its tail, was taken from the end of the pier at Holland station. The fact that horseshoe crabs seldom take a hook and the added fact that this one was a whale compared to others taken in the bay

caused a small sensation, and all the fishermen on the pier put down their rods to have a look at the monster. This crab was not only larger than any other ever taken at this point, but in other ways it Is Baid to be the most marvelous* for on the back of Its shell it had a man’s face, done in water colors. The face had been painted by an artist of no mean ability and it depicted a man who had looked long upon the cup that cheers. The eyes were half closed and the nose was very red. The entire shell was taken up with the features of a Broadway “rounder.” Mr. Leahy, who is a member at one of the fishing clubs of the beach and is fond of his little Joke, is accused at having bad the crab decorated in advance and to have hooked it on his line when no one was looking, but this he stoutly denies. «, Old fishermen say the er&b is at least one hundred years old, but the best experts pronounce the painting to be of recent origin. Whatever the antecedents of the crab may be or its previous condition of servitude, there are at least half a hundred witnesses to declare that it was pulled from the bay by Mr. Leahy.