Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1885-04-07
HUMAN CAUDAL APPENDICES.

The discovery of the tailed man has been
80 often announced that, until he is isactually
captured, photographed, lionized and duly
reported on, we shall continue skeptcal re-
carding the "well authenticated statement"
of this interesting parsonage running wild
and presumably naked-in the woods O!
New Britain. The fact that some extreme
ly inaccessible spot has Invariably been Sc
lected for his abode has enabled successive
generations Of romancers to remain uncon-
tradicted until they and their story were for
gotten. Since the famous Lord Monboddo's
time there have been plenty OF assertions
which would have been good enough proof
for a theorist ready to catch at any straw.
though hardly weighty enough for ethnolo-
eistss For example, p certain Colonel du
Corret reported to the French Academy that
when in Mecca, forty-thrce years ago, he
saw at the house ofthe Emir Gullane slave,
named Bellai, who had q tail three inches
long and "a flexible as monkeys. Unfor
tunately. Colonel du Corret is not generally
admitted TO have ever been in Mecca,
though the account which he gives has, to
an appreciable extent, been repeated, If not
confirmed, by other telers of wondrous
tales.
John Struys, Dutch traveller, who visit
ed Formosa in 1877, asserted that he saw in
the interior of that island savage with q
tail more than foot long, covered with red
hair and very much like that Of 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 Nam Mans, who were evidently
tho people to whom NJ. du Correct 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 women in
Abyssinia with tails like dogs and horses
so ponderous that they use them as Scap-
ons, and adds that such people also live
near China. Dr. Hubsch aflirms that he
saw in 1852, in the Constantinople hospital
to which he was physician, Mann Mans
woman with tail two inches long and
wolfish expression quite i'll keeping. Dr.
Hubsch was man of good standing. though
at the time his reputation for strict adher-
ence 10 the truth was not unquestiuned by
skeptics. In reality, it is now known that
such deviations from the normal state cf
matters are by no means unique.
castle, which was born with tail one and
one-fourth inches long, DR.. Max Mertels, a
distinguished German anthropologist has.
within the last four years, investigated
twenty -one vel! authenticated cases of per-
sons having been born with tails. There ia,
therefore, no reason for scouting the idea
that men provided with the superiluity may
exist, since it is an essential principle of
modern biology that any peculiarly may be-
come hereditary, and that there IS tell
dency TO perpetuate these accidental
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-projects somewhat, and Proi.
Ernst Haeckl, who regards the bones as an
undeveloped tail, declares that there ex-
ist rudimentary muscles, the remains OF
those which, according to the somewhat
wild evolutionist, served TO make the
tail OF our ancient progenitors. Unfor-
tunately, the subject hos never yet
been reasonably treated from a popular
point of view, the idea leading itself too
much to burlesgue or to ridicule for that
calm discussion which so grave possibility
demands. 1t is, ipdeed-so Mr.. Barring
Gould tells us-a widespread superstition
among Devonshire children that Cornish
men are born with tails, and according to
similar legend, referred TO by Andrew Mar
vel in his Loyal Scot" certain men of Kent
were afflicted in like fashion as a mark of
the divine displeasure of their treatment of
Thomas Becket's horse, at Strood, near
Rochester. But after all, what matters it?
A tail is by no means an ornamental super
fluffy. A tailless monkey is infinitely less
pleasant to the eye than one with tail,
,1anet l,J F,n 9
recognized by the men attaching those of
wild animals to their dress when perform
ing any particularly sacred dances. Indeed,
the train of fashionable lady, of q great
officer of state like Lord Chancellor, and
debutante of Court may be referred to
similar inarticulate longing after what ra-
ture has omitted to supply.-London Stan
dard