Clubs Huge Shark To Death

1920

Life Guard Kills a 450-pound Maneater With Oar.

EDGEMERE, N. Y. — A shark weighing 450 pounds was captured and killed on the bathing beach here by George Weiss, a life guard.

Attracted by the screams of bathers, who fled from the water, Weiss saw the shark plunging over the breakers. He jumped into a small boat, drove the shark into shallow water and clubbed it to death with an oar.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Aug. 7, 1920, p. 4.

Report Real Sea-Serpent

1905

Rudyard Kipling has seen his second sea serpent, according to a story which comes with some seriousness from Cape Town. People who read Kipling's first sea-serpent story thought it was merely a brilliant piece of fiction. This second sea serpent story is not told by Kipling, but by the skipper of the steamship Armadale Castle. The sea serpent was seen — in fact, it was struck by the ship and probably killed — while the Armadale Castle was on her last voyage to Cape Town, in latitude 3 degrees south. Mr. Kipling was aboard the ship.

Commander Robinson is not sure whether the creature struck was a real sea serpent, a queer whale or a greatly overgrown shark. Whatever it was, the thing was hit by the bow or the ship where, in all properly regulated fishes, the pectoral fin exists. The head was doubled across the port bow and the tail trailed away along the starboard side. The violent struggles of the creature to free itself from its painful and embarrassing position led to its striking the soft brown paint of the "boot-topping" on the ship's side with the powerful fluke of its tail.

This was observed by the boatswain and some of the men who were watching the affair through the side ports immediately over the tail of the fish. The marks enabled the commander afterward to make fairly accurate measurements. From mark to stem it was forty-five feet. In girth it was apparently about the volume of one of the ship's lifeboats at the broadest part, say eight feet in diameter, very gracefully tapering away toward the tail. The body appeared to be of a greenish-brown color with large dark spots all over the back and sides, the lower parts being of a dull white.

It was first observed by one of the seamen, who heard a knocking against the ship's side. When the news was passed along the decks all the passengers, young and old. performed a mad stampede into the forecastle to look at the unhappy prisoner. The engines were stopped as soon as possible and reversed, but fully a quarter of an hour elapsed between the first discovery and the final clearance, by which time the creature was either dead or completely exhausted, for it sank slowly, tail first.

Sharks Bite? Oh, They're Afraid, Hawaiians Claim

1915

Fisherman Swims for Hours Near "Man-Eaters"

HONOLULU, Hawaii, Dec. 16. — South sea fishermen have branded the shark story as a myth, made up by authors of adventure stories.

They say there is no such thing as a man-eating shark.

There is "Dudie" Miller, for instance. Every one in the South Pacific knows "Dudie" Miller of Honolulu.

Recently he dangled naked in the tide, hanging in a life preserver in 100 fathoms of water, spearing fish. A 11-foot shark began circling him, attracted by dead fish the man carried in a sack strapped to his waist.

Hobnobs With Shark

"I want to show you something," said Miller, summoning two canoemen.

They watched the "man-eater" sweep around the fisherman poised in his life belt.

"Dudie" merely laughed. The canoemen lifted him from the water and deposited him again 100 yards away. And there the fisherman and the shark hobnobbed all afternoon.

Kahia Moe, maker of hula drums, is another of these myth shatterers.

Rides on Shark's Back

Kahia Moe, a native Hawaiian, stretches shark-skin across his far-famed dance drums. And to make them properly resonant, as well as to consecrate them fittingly, the shark, "must be slain in mortal combat," he maintains.

And so Kahai Moe kills his shark in the water, with a knife, slitting the pallid belly with a dexterous slash. He has dispatched hundreds in this kind of "mortal combat." And he speaks of them as "cowards."

David Mahu is an expert killer. When the water is low he leaps into the Pakule and rides sharks, straddling them with his naked limbs.

"Shark attack living men?" chuckles David Mahu. "It is a joke! They are even afraid to bite a dead horse until they're almost gone with hunger!"

Youngest Cue Shark Shoots Left-Handed

1915

August Kieckhefer, Holder of Three Titles, Makes Fast Rise in Billiard World

Years ago, twelve to be exact, August Kieckhefer strolled over to a cue rack in a billiard hall in Chicago and stood contemplating the polished sticks with their fascinating leather and ivory tips.

He had never handled a cue, but when asked to play he decided it would be a good time to start. He was only 14 and wore short trousers. How he got into a billiard hall at that age history does not tell, but he has been in a lot of them since. He holds three titles.

Goodness only knows why Kieckhefer picked out a cue with his left hand that night twelve years ago, but he did and he played the entire game with his left hand. He has played with the southpaw ever since.

Becomes Pool Shark

Chance must have made him a left-hand cueist, for in everything else, from writing and eating to "mitting" a friend, he is right-handed.

Kieckhefer's first game was pool, called pocket billiards now. That was in 1903. Six years later he was State champion of Wisconsin.

Then he turned to three-cushion billiards and won the championship of Milwaukee, Wis., in 1910. During the next three years he didn't do much except practice, then in 1914 won the interstate title.

Kieckhefer kept practicing and this year, at the age of 26, played for the world's title against Alfred De Oro, the Cuban, who is past 50 and held the pool championship eighteen consecutive years before he became three-cushion king.

Trains Like a Fighter

"Billiard players are born," says Kieckhefer. "It's the stroke that counts and that's born in you, not acquired."

When preparing for a tournament or big match he trains a good deal like a fighter. He walks two hours every morning. He is careful about his food, claiming even a slight attack of indigestion might throw him off form.

Keeps His Youth By Risking Life

1920

Man Does Peril Stunts to Stave Off Age

Says Fear is "Vampire" That Breaks One's Spirit

LOS ANGELES -- Physical fear and undue caution, to which the softened city dweller becomes increasingly subject, are the twin vampires that help prematurely to steal away a man's youth and break his spirit.

Out of this conviction, L. W. Walker, capitalist, philanthropist and famous daredevil of 64 years, has evolved a singular formula for staving off "age" while growing old.

Whenever he sees the "vamps" in the offing he promptly takes 'em out on a mountain top, into the tip of a giant tree or drapes himself over a precipice with them, and pronto -- they're gone.

Wins Name as Daredevil

For years Walker has performed hazardous feats that have won him a name in the clan of daredevils. And, to add zest to his adventures, he garnishes them with wager readily taken by men already in the grip of fear.

His winnings -- and he seldom loses when he attempts a humanly possible exploit -- are devoted to the poor and the handicapped.

Here are some of Walker's most recent stunts, all wage-winners (and remember he's 64!):

Stood out at right angles half way up a 100-foot tree, one foot in the crotch of a limb.

Hung by the knees, head down, from topmost branch of a towering pine.

Stood erect, hands free, on the top of another tree leaning over a deep chasm.

Climbed an almost vertical mountain wall to a point which many hardy young mountaineers had pronounced inaccessible.

Scaled a cliff where the foothold was so precarious that he had to be rescued with ropes from above.

Dived Among Sharks

Walker has proof of many other equally hair-raising performances, and continues to add to the list whenever he feels in need of a "bracer."

Once he dived into a school of sharks that lashed away in terror as the "old" man splashed his defiance.

He is now taking up aviation by way of further diversion and conquest of fear, claiming that he is growing steadily younger as his life-span lengthens toward the proverbial three-score-and-ten.

As modest as he is fearless, Walker gives freely, but without ostentation, from his ample funds to those he feels deserving.