STORY OF A WHALE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2090, 27 May 1907, Page 1

STORY OF A WHALE.

SLICE PRODUCED IN COURT.

A prtion of a dead whale was produced as evidence in an amusing case heard in London, a few weeks ago. Mr. Owen (counsel for the defendants) produced a large oval tin can in which the evidence was contained. Alarmed by a horrid suggestion of decomposition, those in court protested by word and look, but counsel proceeded blandly: “I have got a piece of the whale here. ‘ It was spirt to me at the Temple, apd I assure you that it has not the faintest unpleasant smell about it. .Laughter.) His Lordship: “I am going to accept your word for it, without any evidence.” (Laughter.)

The Cleethorpes Urban • District Council were moving to restrain Foster Brothers from exhibiting the carcase of a whale on the foreshore of the Humber, on the grounds that they were committing a trespass and creating a nuisance, and for an order directing the defendants to remove the dead body of the whale forthwith. Mr. Wright Taylor said that the whale was found in a dying condition about 100 miles out in the North Sea, and was landed on the Stli or oth of March, and sold by auction to tlie defendants for £l4 10s. The defendants believed they had a very good thing, as the blubber and whalebone were worth £3OO, and they had made a very large sum by exhibiting the carcase, which weighed 100 tons. The council complained of a serious and dangerous nuisance through the dc-

composition of tho body, and that the digging of holes in tho foreshore for tho erection of a marquee was

trespass. Mr. Owen: “We say we are not trespassing, because the whale was there when we bought it.” (Laughter.)

On tho question of nuisance- lie claimed that the case was res judicatae, because the council had already obtained nn order from the local magistrates under the Public Health Act to remove it

It was evidently agreed that tho defendants, without prejudice to any common law right they might have to exhibit the whale, should undertake with all due diligence to remove tho carcase by, if possible, floating it off the foreshore on the first available tide, and in the meantime to continue to remove it in parts, and not to exhibit it.