Soon after the mermaid came into Barnum’s possession, a news letter appeared in the _New York Herald_ from Montgomery, Alabama. It told of the state of trade, the condition of the crops, the political situation, and mentioned near the end that a Dr. Griffin, of the Lyceum of Natural History, London, who had but recently returned from Pernambuco, had in his trunk a most remarkable curiosity, a real mermaid, found by Chinese in the Fiji Islands, preserved by them, and purchased by Dr. Griffin for the London Lyceum of Natural History. One week later another news letter, this time from Charleston, South Carolina, telling the same story, was published in another New York newspaper. A third letter, mailed from Washington to another New York newspaper one week after the second news letter, announced the mermaid and mentioned that Dr. Griffin was soon to visit New York en route to London, and expressed the hope that New Yorkers would have the opportunity to see this extraordinary curiosity. Several days after the Washington letter, Levi Lyman, Barnum’s assistant in the business of Joice Heth, registered at a Philadelphia hotel as Dr. Griffin, of Pernambuco and London. He remained there several days, and, just after paying his bill, he thanked the landlord for his constant courtesy and attention, and offered to show him, in gratitude for the excellent treatment he had received at the hostelry, a unique curiosity. The landlord gazed in wonderment at a real mermaid, and asked for permission to invite a few friends to see it. The doctor said that he did not suppose that it would do the Lyceum of Natural History of London much harm if a few of the landlord’s best friends saw the mermaid; the Philadelphia newspapers for the next day and several days later commented at length on the great natural phenomenon. [Illustration: THE MERMAID IN HER NATURAL ELEMENT From _The Sunday Mercury_]