John Bale, the writer of the “Actes of English Votaries,” is righteously indignant on the point. He writes as follows in his book, “John Capgrave and Alexander of Esseby sayth that for castynge of fyshe tayles at thys Augustyne, Dorsettshyre men had tayles ever after, but Polydorus applieth it unto Kentish men at Strood by Rochester, for cuttynge of Thomas Becket’s horse’s tail. Thus hath England in all other land a perpetual infamy of tayles by these wrytten legendes of lyes. An Englyshman cannot now travayle in another land by way of marchandyse or any other honest occupynge, but it is most contumeliously thrown in his teethe that all Englyshmen have tayles. That uncomely note and report hath the nation gotten, without recover, by these laisy and idle lubbers, the monkes and the priestes, which could find no matters to advance their gaines by, or their saintes, as they call them, but manifest lies and knaveries.” John Bale was a post-Reformation Bishop, holding the see of Ossory during the reign of Edward VI, and was especially notable for his zeal in spreading the principles of the Reformed Church. John Struys, a Dutchman, who visited Formosa in the year 1677, gives a description of a tailed man that is strongly suggestive of the monkey theory, except that he endows him with intelligible speech. He tells us that before he visited this island he had often heard of men therein who had long tails, but that he had never been able to credit it. Seeing, however, is proverbially believing. “I should now have difficulty in accepting it,” he writes, “if my own senses had not removed from me every pretence for doubting the fact, by the following strange adventure. The inhabitants of Formosa, being used to see us, were in the habit of receiving us on terms which left nothing to apprehend on either side; so that, although mere foreigners, we always believed ourselves to be in safety, and had grown familiar enough to ramble at large without an escort, when grave experience taught us that in so doing we were hazarding too much. As some of our party were one day taking a stroll, one of them had occasion to withdraw about a stone’s-throw from the rest, who being at the moment engaged in an eager conversation, proceeded without heeding the disappearance of their companion. After awhile, however, his absence was observed, and the party paused, thinking he would rejoin them. They waited some time, but at last, tired of the delay, they returned in the direction of the spot where they remembered to have seen him last. Arriving there, they were horrified to find his mangled body lying on the ground. While some remained to watch the dead body, others went off in search of the murderer, and these had not gone far when they came upon a man of peculiar appearance, who, finding himself enclosed by the exploring party, so as to make escape from them impossible, began to foam with rage, and by cries and wild gesticulations