By Isle of Wight Observer
The Isle of Wight Observer published on 1st December, 1855 recounts two incredible events from Ryde that week. We couldn’t help feeling sorry for the turtle who apparently held a view on the local political circumstances.
AN ALDERMAN’S FISH. – On Saturday last, as some fishermen of the name of Seymour were following their usual avocations off Ryde, they saw something at a distance which they thought to be a man overboard. They accordingly rowed towards the object, when to their surprise and pleasure they found it to be an enormous turtle weighing 2 cwt. Every kind of conjuncture was hazarded as to how the “illustrious stranger” got here, and the mystery remains unsolved; some rather curious speculations were also indulged in as the object of its visit, but at last it was unanimously agreed that it was to reproach Ryde for being non-corporate, and to remind us of the “good time coming.” The animal suffered the extreme penalty for its temerity, as it speedily got into the hands of Mr. Mackay, of Union-street, who made “fish, flesh, and fowl” go it for T. Hawkins. esq., who, being an excellent judge, pronounced the quantity and quality of the soup to be unsurpassed.
EXTRAORDINARY FEAT. – An itinerant cripple took up his quarters on the quay on Thursday afternoon, and performed a feat which, had we not seen, we would never have believed. As he could not stand without a crutch, he knelt in front of a Windsor chair, on which, was placed a stone about the size of a 9lb. skittle ball. Taking an agate stone about a foot in circumference in his left hand he placed it on the stone in the chair, and with his hand struck a blow which broke it into atoms, as completely as a strong man would with a geologist’s hammer. He repeated the feat several times, and there was no deception in the business.