Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 September 1888 — Shall We Eat Whale. [ARTICLE]

Shall We Eat Whale.

The London Daily Telegraph has been discursing the possibility of inducing mankind to eat whale. Somebody,greatly daring, has dined on whale’s flesh, and reports it good. One-average whale would yield 50,000 pints of soup—somewhat oily, perhaps, r but nutritious and heat-producing; good enough, at any rate, for charity dinners to the poor. “An entire child’s school,-Isays the editor, “might be fed out of a single whale for the whole winter.” That would depend, probably, on the size of the child’s school and the size of the whale. It may be admitted, however, that what Mark Twain calls a good, ordinary, moderate sized whale would comprise a great deal of solid eating, it may also be presumed that a little of it would go a lhiig ways. Moreover, the cetaceans are a long-lived race; the Telegraph has heard of specimens from 300 to 700 years old. There is a strong antecedent} probability’ that even a middle-aged whale —say, rising his third century—would be tough. All things considered, therefore, the calculation is not unreasonable that on© whale would last a~Foarding school a whole winter. The editor supposes that this \vpiild mean a great saving to the boarding-school keeper. That depends on th© price of the whale. Is it expected that whale meat will be cheaper than mutton? '