STORY OF A WHALE

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13485, 11 May 1907, Page 2 (Supplement)

STORY OF A WHALE

j. . SLICE PRODUCED IN COURT.. A portion 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 dan in which the evidence was contained. Alarmed by a horrid suggestion of decomposition, those \ in court protested byword and look, but counsel proceeded blandly " I have" got piece of the whale here. It was sent to me at the Temple, and 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 fortwith. 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 Bth or 9th off March, and sold by auction to the defendants for £14 10s. The defendants believed they had a very good thing, as the blubber and' whalebone I were worth £300, 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 j through the decomposition of the body,; and that ; the. digging of holes in the foreshore for the erection of a • marquee was trespass. Mr. Owen: "We say we are not trespassing, because the whale was there when Iwe bought it. (Laughter.) '. On the question of nuisance he claimed that the case was res judicatae because the council had already obtained an order from the local/ magistrates under the Public [Health Act to remove it. [ It was eventually agreed: that the de- [ fendants, without prejudice to any common j law right they might have to exhibit the whale, should* undertake with all due diligence to remove the 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. ;/ .' ; '/:././. '