FEEJEE MERMAID!

Engaged for a short time, the animal (regarding which there has been so much dispute in the scientific world) called the positively asserted by its owner to have been taken alive in the Feejee Islands, and implicitly believed by many scientific persons, while it is pronounced by other scientific persons to be an artificial production, and its natural existence claimed by them to be an utter impossibility. The manager can only say that it possesses as much the appearance of reality as any fish lying on the stalls of our fish markets-but who is to decide when doctors disagree? At all events, whether this production is the work of nature or art, it is decidedly the most stupendous curiosity ever submitted to the public for inspection. If it is artificial, the sense of sight and touch are useless, for art has rendered them totally ineffectual. If it is natural, then all concur in declaring it