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Engaged for a short
time, the animal
(regarding which
there has been so
much dispute in the
scientific world)
called the
FeJee Mermaid!
Positively asserted
by its owner to have
been taken alive in
the FeJee Islands,
and implicitly
believed by may
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
appearance of
reality as any
fish lying on the
stalls of our fish
markets-but who is
to decide when
doctors disagree?
If it is artificial,
the senses of sight
and touch are
useless, for art has
rendered them
totally
ineffectual. If it
is natural, then all
concur in declaring
it The Greatest
Curiosity in the
World!
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