Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 September 1875 — Capture of a Devil-Fish. [ARTICLE]

Capture of a Devil-Fish.

A monster devil-fish was caught under the New York steamship wharf on Monday afternoon. He in some way got under and was unable to find his way out from among the piling. Some men at work upon the wharf heard the splashing which he made and fired several shots at him, but as they seemed to have no effect a harpoon was obtained and his capture effected, fifteen men being required to tow him ashore. The blood which escaped from him colored the water for about ten feet on either side. He was sixteen feet in width and fifteen in length. His fins were about four feet long, and his tail about the same length and not much larger than a person’s finger. His mouth opened to the width of two feet and was eighteen inches in length, and projecting from each side of it was a feeler about one foot wide and two feet long, which he rolled up and unrolled at will. So far as could be ascertained there has been but one of these singular fish caught in this region before this one. Previous to the war one larger than this one was cap tured near Center street wharf. " To Armenia, in Asia, belongs the honor of discovering that telegraph wires may be adapted as clothes-lines for laundry purposes. The practice of hanging linen to dry on the wires has lately become general in that country, and revealed the iHtherto unknown fact that the Armenian peasantry are' in the habit, occasionally, of washing their clothes. Much dismay has, however, been caused by an order that has been issued by the authorities forbidding the continuance of this arrangement. It seems that the wires have, on more occasions than one, been broken by awkward washerwomen, and Sheiket Effendi, an “Armenian Scudamore,” who has just been appointed Director of the Telegraph at Erzeroum, has solemnly declared that no more shirts, stockings or other garments shall be hung on the wires, on,, any pretense whatever.