Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 193, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 August 1913 — Umpity Boom! Boom! Then the Turtle Let Go [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Umpity Boom! Boom! Then the Turtle Let Go

MSW YORK. —Any boy from the lx weet, where creek is just plain “crick,” and where turtles are as thick as June bugs, could have told Daniel Holmes that the bow end of a snapping turtle is no place to loaf around, especially when the weather’s clear. Daniel comes from Coney Island, though, and anybody'll tell you they know more about soft shell crabs down there than they do about snapping turtles, Coney island being a snapping turtle’s idea of no kind of a place to inhabit Be that as it may, however, there arrived at Frederick Brencke’s fish market at West First street and Sheepshead bay road, Coney island, two of the biggest man-eating turtles Coney ever saw. One weighed 380 pounds and the other 256. The big one evidently made up his mind he 'wasn’t going to be soup. Holmes’ hands fascinated him and he waited his chance. He didn’t have to wait long. Holmes' fingers were soon carelessly straying in the neighborhood of the turtle's chin, and it just reached out and took hold. ' Holmes yelled. The snapping turtle had a firm grip, however.

"Gee, and it's a clear day, too,” sympathetically remarked an innocent bystander. i “What d’you mean, a cleft, dayr yelled Holmes, trying in vain to choke the turtle. “A snapping turtle never lets go till it thunders,” said the innocent bystander. “Pray for -rain, then," begged Holmes, hopping on the other foot and pulling harder. How long Holmes would have re-’ malned attached to the turtle no one can eay, but the innocent bystander had the forethought to stop a passing band and hammer mightily on the bass drum. Instantly the deluded turtle let go. Holmes’ bitten hand was dressed at the Coney Island hospital.