Fish Stories

Feilding Star, Volume IX, Issue 94, 26 January 1888, Page 2

Fish Stories

It is an accepted axiom that all fish stories, without exception, are tinged/with exaggeration and romance, in dthif»r words no man or woman can tell a fish story, and at the same time confine himself or herself within the stm-t lim • ' ifc <A iact. The ancients judiciously ' placed Tiath at the bottom of a well 1 if here she has remained, ever since, ■ b^ we do solemnly helieve if that , lady : #er©to > pijt-lier foot oh a B>aall wi Gr tiny miaac/A 1 , aAil aft-erwai'da

narrate the circumstance to a newspaper reptirter, Bhe,v«r6iild lie about it* She could'nt help, it: One direct encouragenient to this vice is the credulity of people. One man tells about the size and number of the haul he has made, and the other not only believes the yarn, but passes it along with the addition of a score or two more strung on in a friendly way. It may be— -and doubtlesVis- -lfchat^each rr in his turn hopes to have his, fish story held sacred •♦ as proofs of holy writ," 7 and so only pretends to have an abiding faith' in the story" while he passes it on its merry way. Shakespeare was aware of this failing <iv human nature, because hespbke of "a very ancient and fish-like smell, " .when he „ wanted to express his doubts on a yarn told by anybody. In this age of championships it strikes us as . singular that contests for .the enviable position of the champion liar has never bejßn inaugurated. If -cannot be for wautv of athletic liars. For instance we would put no end of money (if we had it) on the man who invented the story of a certain steamer which struck a shark, fair with her j cutwater on tb,e tsentre between- the. i head and the tail, and so carried the body for 380 miles in the open sea, the said body or earcase s bnly leaving the bow and 'floating astern when the steamer lessened her speed. There is an elaborate beauty in this lie" which must commend itself to every disciple of { aesthetic fvmendacity.: Another man on whom we would .bet- money (with the reservation as before); and he is tbatv festive fisherman who stuffed the Sydney agent of ; the Press Association with the wonderful yarn about Btjeke> the boxer, being chivied by a shark in Sydney harbor. In this story the voracious " ; *iger-of.the seas" is said to have chewed up the. boat with apparent relish, but foolishly (iv our opinion) abandoned what we always thought was its natural food, for mere wood and paint. We donot question he or^she (we cannot say positively whicht as the sex of the shark hy some oversight was not men.tioned in the telegram,) had his or her reasons for such remarkable CQnduct, .only we do not really believe tHe; shark knew, ; jor,: even suspected; it prr he or she, as: the case iv ay be, was. to be telegraphed all .over the world — and the . Australian .colonies— or Btjhke, the boxer, would never have "reached the, shorn." . It may be contended that if he had .not got ashure, hut instead had found' a resting place in the bowels, of a hammerheaded shark, , the story would have been spoiled. \YVj ,dp\ not hold with that idea in the smallest -degree ; .no--i thing can spoil a fUli story, although i it may generally have, as Shakespeare says, " an ancient and fish like smell." These two instances in themselves ought to encourage the estab-, iidhment of a prize ring for liars, as well as for mere brutal body punchers. There would be no deficiency of com petitors. .. .-'