The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1885-04-11
People With Tails.
London Standard.


The discovery of the tailed man has
been SO often announced that until he
is actually captured, photographed,
lionized and duly rep rted on we shall
continue sceptical regarding the "well-
authenticated statement of this inter-
esting parsonage running wild-and
presumably naked-in the woods of
New Britain. The fact that some ex-
tremely inaccessible spot has invariably
been selected for his abode has enabled
successive generations of romancers to
remain uncontradicted until they and
their story were forgotten. Since the
famous Lord Monboddo's time there
have been plenty of assertions which
would have been good enough proof
for theorist ready to catch at any
straw, though hardly weighty enough
for ethnologists. For example, Ger
tain Colonel Du Corret reported to the
French Academy that when in Mecca,
forty-three years ago, he saw at the
house Of the Emir 'fGhilane" slave
named Bellal, VINO had a tail three
inches long and as flexible as a mon
keys. Unfortunately Colonel Du Cor
ret is not generally admitted to have
ever been in Mecca, though the ac-
count which he gives has to an appre-
ciable extent been repeated, if not con-
firmed, by other tellers of wondrous
tales.
John Struys, Dutch traveller, who
visited Formosa in 1917, asserted that
he saw in the interior of that island a
savage ''with a tail more than a foot
long, covered with red hair, and very
like that of a cow" an appendage
which, he adds, was common to all the
inhabitants and "was the effect of the
climate" Hornsman transferred the
story to the Niam-N Mans, who were
evidently the people to whom M. Du
Corret referred. Again and again have
travellers in Ethiopia alluded to the
belief in the tailed men which exists
among the Abyssinians. DR.. Wolff was
quite convinced of the truth of the
story of there being men and woman
in Abyssinia with tails like dogs and
horses so ponderous that they use
them as weapons-and adds that such
people also live near China. Dr. Hubsch
affirms that he saw in 1852, in the
Constantinople Hospital, to which he
was a physician, Niam-Niam woman
with tail two inches long and wolf
ish expression quite in keeping. DR..
Hubsch was man of good stature,
though at times his reputation for strict
adherence to the truth was not unques-
toned by skeptics. In reality, it is
now known that such deviation from
the normal state of matters are by no
means unique.
Setting aside the story of a child in
Newcastle, which was born with tail
one and fourth inches long, Mr..
Max Mertels, distinguished German
anthropolgist, has within the last four
years investigated twenty-one-well-au-
thenticated cases of persons having been
born with tails. There is, therefore,
no reason for scouting the idea that
men provided with the superhuity may
exist, since it is an essential principle
of modern biology that any popularity
may become hereditary and that there
is tendency to perpetuate these acci-
dental "sports" for ''the good of the
Species" In early life the oscoccygis,
or termination of the sacrum-which in
the adult condition is tucked in-pro-
jects somewhat, and Professor Ernst
Heckl, who regards the bones as an
undeveloped tail, declares that there
exist rudimentary muscles, the remains
of those which, according to the some
what wild evolutionist, served to make
the tail of our "ancient progenitors.
Unfortunately, the subject has never
yet been reasonably treated from pop
ular point of view, the idea lending it
self too much to burlesque or to ridicule
for that calm discussion which so grave
a possibility demands. 1t is indeed
so Mr.. Barring Gould tells us-a wide
spread superstition among Devonshire
children that Cornishmen are born with
tails, and according to similar legend,
referred to by Andrew Marvel in his
sLoyal Scot" certain men of Kent
were afflicted in like fashion as mark
of the Divine displeasure of their treat
ment of Thomas A Becket's horse at
Strood, near Rochester. But, after all,
what matters it7 A tail is by no means
an ornamental superauity. A tailess
monkey is infinitely less pleasant to the
eye than one with tail, and among
various savage tribes this fact is recog-
nized by the men attaching those of
wild animals to their dress when per-
forming any particularly sacred dances.
Indeed, the train of a fashionable lady,
of a great officer of state like the Lord
Chancellor and a debutante at court
may be referred to similar inarticu-
late longing after what nature has omit
ted to supply.
B@ Husband :-"My dear have you