[Illustration]
Have you seen
THE BEAUTIFUL DOLPHIN,
_The Performing Pig & the Mermaid?_
If not, pray do! as the exhibition contains
more variety than any other in England.
Those ladies and gentlemen who
may be pleased to honour it with a visit
will be truly gratified.
TOBY,
_The Swinish Philosopher, and Ladies’ Fortune
Teller._
That beautiful animal appears to be endowed
with the natural sense of the human
being. He is in colour the most
beautiful of his race; in symmetry the
most perfect; in temper the most docile;
and far exceeds any thing yet seen for his
intelligent performances. He is beyond
all conception: he has a perfect knowledge
of the alphabet, understands arithmetic,
and will spell and cast accounts,
tell the points of the globe, the dice-box,
the hour by any person’s watch,
&c.
The Real Head of
MAHOWRA,
=_THE CANNIBAL CHIEF_.=
At the same time, the public will have
an opportunity of seeing what was exhibited
so long in London, under the title
of
THE MERMAID:
The wonder of the deep! not a fac-simile
or copy, but the same curiosity.
=Admission Moderate.=
⁂ _Open from Eleven in the Morning till
Nine in the Evening._
The great “prodigies” of this show were the “performing pig,” and the
performing show-woman. She drew forth the learning of the “_swinish
philosopher_” admirably. He told his letters, and “got into spelling”
with his nose; and could do a sum of two figures “in addition.” Then, at
her desire, he routed out those of the company who were in love, or
addicted to indulgence; and peremptorily grunted, that a “round, fat,
oily”-faced personage at my elbow, “loved good eating, and a pipe, and a
jug of good ale, better than the sight of the Living Skeleton!” The
_beautiful dolphin_ was a fish-skin stuffed. The _mermaid_ was the last
manufactured imposture of that name, exhibited for half-a-crown in
Piccadilly, about a year before. The _real head of Mahowra, the cannibal
chief_, was a skull that might have been some English clod-pole’s, with
a dried skin over it, and bewigged; but it looked sufficiently terrific,
when the lady show-woman put the candle in at the neck, and the flame
illuminated the yellow integument over the holes where eyes, nose, and a
tongue had been. There was enough for “a penny!”