I remember hearing the late Dr.Wollaston, with his wonted ingenuity, suggest a method for measuring the strength of a shark's bite.

If a smooth plate of lead, he thought, were thrust into the fish's mouth, the depth which his teeth should pierce the lead would furnish a sort of scale of the force exerted.
I need scarcely mention, that, when a shark is floundering about, the quarter-deck becomes a scene of pretty considerable confusion; and if there be blood on the occasion, as there generally is, from all this rough usage, the stains are not to be got rid of without a week's scrubbing, and many a growl from the captain of the after-guard.

For the time, however, all such considerations are superseded; that is to say, if the commander himself takes an interest in the sport, and he must be rather a spoony skipper that does not.

If he be indifferent about the fate of the shark, it is speedily dragged forward to the forecastle, amidst the kicks, thumps, and execrations of the conquerors, who very soon terminate his miserable career by stabbing him with their knives, boarding-pikes, and tomahawks, like so many wild Indians.
The first operation is always to deprive him of his tail, which is seldom an easy matter, it not being at all safe to come too near; but some dextrous hand, familiar with the use of the broad axe, watches for a quiet moment, and at a single blow severs it from the body.

He is then closed with by another, who leaps across the prostrate foe, and with an adroit cut rips him open from snout to tail, and the tragedy is over, so far as the struggles and sufferings of the principal actor are concerned.