Antarctic minke whale pioneer Svend Foyn and led by Henrik Johan Bull, managed to harpoon at least three minke whales in the Antarctic between December 1894 and January 1895. Two were saved, both being used for fresh meat (one had only yielded two barrels of blubber). In December 1923, when the men of the first modern whaling expedition to visit the Ross Sea saw "a number of spouts" after leaving the ice edge they were soon disgusted to find out that they from lowly minke whales. The few caught by the British in the 1950s were taken more for curiosity than anything else.
A Gentle Creature A Gentle Creature "A Gentle Creature" (), sometimes also translated as "The Meek One", is a short story by Fyodor Dostoyevsky in 1876. The piece comes with the subtitle of "A Fantastic Story", and it chronicles the relationship between a pawnbroker and a girl that frequents his shop. The story was inspired by a news report that Dostoyevsky read in April 1876 about the suicide of a seamstress. Dostoyevsky referred to it as a "meek suicide" that "keeps haunting you for a long time." The story opens with the narrator in a frenzy about an apparent tragedy that has just