Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 290, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 December 1916 — New Yorkers Watch a Man Make Dead Fish Flop [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

New Yorkers Watch a Man Make Dead Fish Flop

NEW YORK. —-Crowd at the window. Inside a man in a smock, struggling with a three-foot eel. One second eel is about to slip through the man’s hands, but he grabs it just in time, and then the eel wTth another squirm is

loose. Again the man grabs it. This time he gives it a slap and the struggle is over. This is a regular scene on the West street front of Washington market. David Tobias, who learned how to make a dead fish, wriggle way iback in 1868, Is the performer. He .always has an interested audience. If you ask him how he makes not only eels but codfish and flounders—and, If they are in season, sturgeon — cut up Just as If they were alive, he

wilf Jell you that he has an electrical thingamajig in the palm of his hand vhich puts life Into the fish; but he is only poking. “Making a fish squirm is a trick,” said Tobias. “IJehJned how to do it as a boy in the .old market. It can’t be explained, and\ the method can’t be acquired except by long practice.” " With this he gp-abbed a cod, which began to flap about and curve its spine Then the policeman insisted that the crowd move on. ’