The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1895-02-14
LAST OF THE VAMPIRES
BY PHIL ROBINSON.

Do you remember the discovery of
the ''1nan-lizard' bones in cave on
the Amazon some time in the forties?
Perhaps not. But it created great
stir at the time in the scientific world
and in a lazy sort of way interested
men and women Of fashion. For a day
or two it was quite the correct thing
for BelGravia to talk of connecting
Inks Of 1.-The evolution Of man from
the reptile,' and the rca condolences
of the ancient myths that spoke Of
centaurs and rnei,ruiIs as actual exist
ences.
The fact was that q German Jew, an
India rubber merchant, working his
way with the usual mob Of natives
through a cahucho forest along
the Mara non, came upon some bones
on the river bank where he mad pitched
his camp. Idle curiosity made him Try
to put them together, when he found,
to his surprise. that he had before him
the skeleton of creature with human
legs ana feet, a dog-like head and inn
n1ense bat-lil1e wings. Being Il shrewd
man, he saw the possibility of money
being made out of such curio sity; so
he put all the bones he could find in to
a sack and, on the back of llama, they
were in due course conveyed to Cha
chapoyas, and thence to Germany.
Unfortnna tely, his name happened
to be the same as that CT another Ger
man Jew, who had just then been try
ing to hoax the scientific world with
some papyrus rolls of a date anterior
to the flood, and who had been found
out and put to shame. So when his
namesake appeared with the bones Of
a winged man, he was treated with
scant ceremony.
However, he sold the india rubber
very satisfactorily, and as for the
bones, he left them with a young med
ical student of the ancient University
of Bierundwurst, and went back to his
cahucho trees and his natives, and the
banks of the Amazon. And there was
an end Of him.
The young student one day put his
fragments together, and, do what he
wonld, could only make one thing of
them-a winged man, with a dogs
head.
There were few ribs too many, and
some odds and ends of backbone which
were superfuous. but what else could
be expected of the anatomy Of so ex
traordinary a creature? From one
student to another the facts got about,
and at last the professors came to hear
of it. And, to cut long story short,
the Students skeleton was taken to
pieces by the learned heads of the col
lege, and put together again by their
own learned hands.
But, do what they would, they could
only made one thing of it--a winged
man with a dogs head.
The matter now became serious;
the professors were at first puzzled,
and then got quarrelsome; and the re-
suit of their squabbling was that PAM
phlets and counterblasts were pub
lished, and so all the world got to hear
of the bitter controversy about the
imam lizard of the Amazon
One side, declared, of course, that
such creature was an impossibility,
and that the bones were remarkably
clever hoax. The other side retorted
by challenging the skeptics to manu-
facture a duplicate, and publishing
the promise of such large rewards to
anyone who would succeed in doing
so that the museum was beset for
months by competitors. But no one
could manufacture another man-lizard.
The man part was simple enough,
provided they could get human
skeleton. But at the angles of tho
wings were set huge claws, black,
polished and carved, and nothing that
ingenuity could suggest would initiate
them. And the ''genuinists," as these
who believed in the monster called
themselves, set the ''imposturists,"
another poser; for they publicly chal-
]enged them to say what animal either
the head OF the wings had belonged to,
if not to the man-lizard? And the
answer was never given.
So victory remained with them, but
not, alas! the bones of contention.
For the imposturists by bribery and
- .e, F.. s.. ! ., r.l L.