Mermaid at Grimsby (mermaid fever?)

From the Hull Chronicle, reprinted in the Belfast Commercial Chronicle 25th October 1809.

ANOTHER MERMAID.--
The many extraordinary tales that have been mentioned respecting the existence of the mermaid, have given such an air of absurdity to the fact, that there is little wonder at the incredulity of the generality of people in doubting the existence of such a creature in toto. The several instances lately occurring of such an object, as which generally passes under the name of the mermaid, having been seen by persons who may be supposed little likely to be imposed upon by an imaginary appearance, has shaken the opinioin of many and led them at least to hesitate before they condemned the opinion as monstrous and improbable. The appearance of these creatures have generally been confined within those places where positive proof was somewhat hard to be obtained, or at least where the fact had lain so long in obscurity as to prevent an immediate inquiry into the truth of the circumstances.

A short time since, a mermaid was seen in the north of Scotland, and various statements have been published by people who averred having seen similar appearances on the coasts of Norway, but we never before the present instance heard of them being seen on our coasts. Last week, however, whilst a sloop belonging to Beverley was at anchor in Hawk Roads, near Grimsby, a boy on board saw the appearance of a woman at some distance, who he supposed by some accident to have unfortunately fallen overboard a vessel.

Anxious to save her, he hauled the sloop's boat to him, and called to the master and another person on board to assist; but the lady, as he called her, having disappeared, they looked anxiously towards the spot, expecting she might again be buoyed up by the water and thus enable them to render her the assistance she might want. In a short time she appeared again, when they were immediately sensible, from her appearance, that it was a creature of the mermaid species. She came so near the vessel that they could not be deceived, for they perceived her shake herself, and put up her hands to shake back her hair, which was very  long and quite black. Her appearance they describe as that of a blooming country girl.

The above is as nearly as we have been able to learn an accurate account of the appearance of this singular phenomenon, a phenomenon which has afforded a subject of much disputation, but has never yet, so far as we learn, been positively decided as existing.

From the cover of 'The Mermaid of Inish Uig' by R Edwards, 1898