Other exhibited (and lucrative) chimaeras

An Etruscan sculpture of the original Chimera. CC image by Sailko.

The Mermaid.

I need scarcely remind the reader that the preparation lately exhibited under the name of a mermaid is quite fictitious, or rather factitious - a species of fraud which is often practised by knaves upon collectors of curiosities. When I was visiting, some years ago, the fine botanic garden of Mr. Templeton, near Belfast, a boy brought him a very singular looking production, a very pretty daisy and a shamrock growing from the same stem. It was a fraud: but so neatly executed that it was only after several hours' minute examination that we detected the artificial joining of the two plants.

In the Hunterian Museum at Glasgow is a specimen of a beetle got up in this way, for which Dr. Hunter gave no less, if I recollect right, than fifty guineas. It was the body of one species of beetle united to the head of another species, and, as the specimen appeared to be of uncommon beauty and rarity, it was considered of great value. To add to the interests, it was said to have been found floating in the Ganges.

Such seems to be the exhibited preparation called the mermaid, an ingenious union of the head of some monkey to the body of a fish. -- Professor Rennie.

Trinity House in Newcastle. CC image by Andrew Curtis

Newcastle Journal - 23rd June 1832.

I.W.M. informs me that some time ago a relation of his visited the Newcastle Trinity House, and was shown, among other things, a mermaid. The head was human, the expression of the face intelligent, but below the waist the body was fashioned like a fish, with scales and fins. At least, this was the account which was given to I.W.M., who now asks me to say whether it is true or not. As I have never been into this particular Trinity House, I am not in a position to express an opinion on the subject. I confess I did not know that this peculiar class of being had any existence except in popular mythology, although stuffed mermaids have been exhibited since the days of Bartholomew Fair downwards.

 All the world over, however, there are legends about these mysterious creatures. The Ottawas and other American Indians have their man-fish and woman-fish, and the Chinese tell stories not unlike our own about the sea-woman of their Southern seas. We are taught on the most excellent evidence that a mermaid was captured at Bangor, on the shores of the Belfast Lough, in the sixth century, while another caught at Edam in 1403 was carried to Haarlem and kept there for many years.

Perhaps the authorities at the Newcastle Trinity House will unburden themselves of their secret. If they have a mermaid in their possession it is hardly fair to keep the bewitching maiden all to themselves.

Pearson's Weekly, 25th May 1895.

I don't know if Professor Rennie was talking about the mermaid exhibited in London, or a Newcastle mermaid. Anyway it seems appropriate that 60 years later there was a mermaid at Trinity House, as that was / is on the quayside and still provides services for seafarers.

Next to track down Liban, the mermaid from the lough at Belfast.

Standing up for reason

An illustration from 1817, held by the Wellcome Trust.

To the Editor of the Morning Chronicle.

Sir. -- The credulity of the good people of England has often been noticed and commented on, and many a fine fortune has been realized thereby in the hands of the acute natives of France and Italy, &c. yea, the heavy tobacco-headed German, has not failed in the business. While the facility with which the native rogues have managed to impose on their unsuspecting countrymen has been proved in but too many instances. All of these considerations seem to have incited brother Jonathan to try his hand at imposing on brother John, by getting up a monstrous composition under the name and form of a Mermaid forsooth, and impiously and impudently to attribute the abominable forgery to the Divine Being, as his handy work.

In order that you may be aware of the grounds on which I make the foregoing assertions, I have to inform you that the composition was brought from Japan (where I believe it to have been manufactured for the purpose of levying contributions from off the ignorant and unsuspecting). The lower part is a real fish (of a species found in the rivers of China and Japan) the head and shoulders being cut off and replaced by a skeleton, artificially composed, and covered with the muscles, arms, and skin, stripped from off the bust of an old Japanese woman, all which being tolerably well put together, and afterwards smoke-dried, became the "Wonderful Mermaid" now exhibiting in London.

I handled, and minutely inspected the creature, on its arrival at Batavia from Japan, and on that inspection formed my opinion as expressed above. Many blunders have been committed in the  making up of the fabric, too numerous to be here distinctly detailed, nor is it necessary, as it will be readily perceived by any anatomist if opportunity be afforted for the purpose.

I therefore assert that the thing is a composition, and if that be denied, do challenge the proprietor to submit it to be dissected  by a person or persons appointed by the Royal College of Surgeons; and if it he then found to be a real production of natuer, I will then come forward and reimburse the loss, if any, which a Jury may pronounce him to have incurred thereby..
I am, yours obediently,
"SAWNEY."

 Liverpool Mercury, 8th November 1822.

The muscles etc. of an old Japanese woman - that's a bit grim. I'd like to think not though.

The Rossbeigh mermaid pressed into service by the church.

Work for the Kerry Mermaid.
-- A correspondent  informs us - "The mermaid on the bay of Dingle is nothing but a northern seal, being larger and more silvery in its colour than those on this coast, I have seen it repeatedly, probable the creature is weak, which may be the cause of it being so much out of its latitude. Of course the supersitious called it a mermaid, and the priest encouraged the idea, saying it was sent to frighten off the fish from the coast, as a punishment for fishing on Sundays." - Limerick Chronicle

In the Belfast Commercial Chronicle, 5th September 1836.

Did you know the ten commandments aren't even consistent? Image

The Kerry Evening Post also seems to have treated the tale humourously:

 --The Rossbeigh MERMAID presents her compliments to the JACKANAPES of the Tralee Mercury, and requests he will be pleased to accept her best thanks for the kind notice he has, in his last publications, honoured her with on her arrival on those shores. The JACKANAPES and all other APES (particularly the OURANG-OUTANG,) have as grotesque a resemblance to "the human form divine" as the Mermaid herself; she, therefore, requests that in future her scaly tail may be left untouched. The great deficiency in the apish tribes, is however immediately perceptible in the interior of the skull of the jackanapes; its emptiness being proved by the incessant saucy chatter of the animal, its malicious grimace and its attempts to bite its betters, who sometimes tame it by a few sound kicks, though, in general, they look down upon it with utter contempt. Notwithstanding its habitual impertinence, it fawns on and cringes to a beast (not a baboon without a tail, but a kind of WANDEROO, with nearly forty joints to his hinder extremity) bearing a monstrous draggle-tail now trailing in the mire. The poor jackanapes vainly hoping to pick up a few fragments that may fall from the jaws of this voracious beast. The jackanapes is now, we understand about to travel which may mend his manners.

A jackanapes is a tame monkey / a cheeky person. But I'm not sure I'm in on this joke.

Mermaid for sale, Covent Garden

The Evening Express, 7th June 1899.

"Yes," admitted Mr. J.C. Stevens, the auctioneer, whose auks' eggs are the pride of Covent Garden, "it is quite true. We have a mermaid to dispose of."
"Is she a mermaid with a past?" asked the representative of the "Daily Graphic."
"You cannot expect me, as an auctioneer," remarked Mr. Stevens discreetly, "to say anything against her character."
"Is she young?"
"She's stuffed," said Mr. Stevens.
"Dear, dear, how sad! Beautiful in death I suppose?"
"You'd better come and inspect her for yourself." Mr. Stevens led the way to the auction room, where boomerangs and neatly fractured skulls (like cause and effect) were piled amid old china and infirm pottery. He stopped in front of something which looked like a yellow-bellied shark topped by a cocoa nut.

"There," said Mr. Stevens.
"Well, what about it?"
"That's the mermaid."

A descriptive writer suffers many disillusionments in the course of his profession, but the Covent Garden mermaid was the worse experienced by the representative of the "Daily Graphic" since January 4, 1890. The only resemblance which it bore to the mermaids in the pictures was that it had a tail; and that it made no attempt to veil its charms. The "Daily Graphic," in the interests of the truthfulness of artists, felt compelled to remonstrate.
"Are you sure it's a mermaid?" he asked.
"It's sometimes called a manatee," admitted Mr. Stevens, "but it's the same thing."
"But just look at it! Do you think any sailor - even a Lascar - could mistake that for a siren?"
"It's got a nice head."
"But where's its flowing hair?"
"Look at its sloping shoulders," pleaded Mr. Stevens.
"It's got a hide like the barrel of a musical box."
"But it has a graceful back - look at it!"
"Why," said the disappointed pressman, "its back is sewn up!"
And that, as a matter of fact, was the only feminine thing about it.

The mermaid was put up to auction on Tuesday and sold for twenty guineas.


[The Daily Graphic was launched on January 4th, 1890. A Lascar is an Indian sailor, so I suppose that's a bit of casual racism. But otherwise I like this a lot. Maybe 20 guineas is about £2000 today.]


South Wales Daily News, 8th June 1899.
Sale of a Mermaid.

Mr. J. C. Stevens sold at his rooms in King-street, Covent Garden, on Tuesday, a "very find" mermaid. Nothing could be much uglier - not even a common seal, which the "mermaid" closely resembles. This particular example is about 7ft. high. It comes from the Persian Gulf, and has been most cleverly preserved. But mermaids are apparently not yet sufficiently known to be fully appreciated, for the example sold on Tuesday only fetched 20 guineas.


Presumably the same creature:
Denbighshire Free Press, 5th August 1899.
A REAL MERMAID.-- Visitors to London should not fail, when passing through Oxford Street, to see the very fine Mermaid (Manatea), about 7 feet high, from the Persian Gulf. It is being shewn in the Entrance Hall of Messrs. A. & F. Pears, Ltd. (Pears' Soap).



Evening Express, 25th July 1900.
A Cheap Mermaid.

Some time ago a mermaid fetched twenty guineas.
On Tuesday one was sold in the historic sale rooms at Covent Garden for five shillings. The first was a real one, so far as it isi possible to get one, being a stuffed manatee. The one knocked down on Tuesday was a Japanese concoction, consisting of a monkey's head and arms and a fish tail deftly joined together.

Such supposed creatures used to be not uncommon in penny gaffs in this country, but are now pretty nearly extinct, as even the most ignorant countryman would hardly be made to believe in one at the present day.Included in the same sale was an Arizona mummy from the caves in the Del Muerto Canon. The collector carried it off under his arm.

Dugongs = mermaids in Yemen. Copyright the Canadian Museum of History.