The life of . mermaid, at every capital, tothe admiration of the ignorant, the perplexity of the learned, and the fillingof his own purse. Is it not a plausible conjecture that this account relates to theidentical mermaid exhibited in the American Museum? Certainlythe method adopted to induce people to buy the likeness, as relatedby Siebold, fairly entitles my Japanese confrere to the palm andtitle of Prince of Humbugs. 236 PRELIMINARIES. Smaller specimens, purporting to be mermaids, but less elab-orately gotten up, have been seen in various museums. I believethey are all made in Jap
The life of . mermaid, at every capital, tothe admiration of the ignorant, the perplexity of the learned, and the fillingof his own purse. Is it not a plausible conjecture that this account relates to theidentical mermaid exhibited in the American Museum? Certainlythe method adopted to induce people to buy the likeness, as relatedby Siebold, fairly entitles my Japanese confrere to the palm andtitle of Prince of Humbugs. 236 PRELIMINARIES. Smaller specimens, purporting to be mermaids, but less elab-orately gotten up, have been seen in various museums. I believethey are all made in Japan. I purchased one in the Peale collec-tion in Philadelphia. It was burnt at the time the Museum openedby me in that city was destroyed by fire in 1851. A small specimen, I have been informed, is also now lying on ashelf in the Royal Museum of Indian Antiquities at the Hague. Iunderstand that it was purchased for the collection from an Ameri-can sea captain, who procured it in China, probably an importationfrom Cut reduced in size from the Sunday Mercury. While Lyman was preparing public opinion on mermaids at thePacific Hotel, I was industriously at work (though of course pri-vately) in getting up Avood-cuts and transparencies, as well as apamphlet, proving the authenticity of mermaids, all in anticipationof the speedy exhibition of Dr. Griffins specimen. I had threeseveral and distinct pictures of mermaids engraved, and with apeculiar description written for each, had them inserted in 10,000copies of the pamphlet which I had printed and quietly storedaway in a back office until the time came to use them. I then called respectively on the editors of the New-York Her- A SCALY TEICK. 237 aid, and two of the Sunday papers, and tendered to each the freeuse of a mermaid cut, with a well-written description, for their pa-pers of the ensuing Sunday. I informed each editor that I hadhoped to use this cut in showing the Fejee Mermaid, but since had announced that as
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1850, bookpub, mermaids, sirensofthesea
