New York Telegram: Among the 2300 and odd persons on board the White Star line steamship Olympic when she arrived from Southampton there was none more interesting than William Legg, engineer’s storekeeper of the mammoth vessel, who has followed the sea for more than thirty years. That Mr. Legg had with him on board the Olympic, safely guarded under a glass case, a real, bonafide mermaid, was only the least of the interesting things about the man.
    While he was lighthouse keeper at the Steep Island lighthouse, off the Chinese coast, about 150 miles from Shanghai, Mr. Legg picked up on the afternoon of September 2, 1902, a living mermaid. The mermaid had been flung on the rocks and was still alive when picked up by Mr. Legg. The body below the waist was that of a fish, with a fin on the back and one on the stomach and a double finned tall. The body was of a dark greenish blue, without scales, while the head and shoulders were of the regulation human flesh. The mermaid was about 20 inches long and emitted a whining sound before it died, death being caused by a laceration in the throat, where it had been flung on a sharp rocky projection.
    “As you can see by the stuffed body,” said Mr. Legg today. “the mermaid had a perfect human face, slightly Chinese in cast. her hair was brown, as some of the hair still shows, although most of it has turned white by the action of the acids used in preserving the body. The Chinese fishermen told me that they had very often seen these mermaids, which they call ‘witches,’ and have heard them making their peculiar whining noise on the shores at night. These mermaids do not live in the water, but between the crevices of the rocks on the Chinese coast, going into deep water only for an occasional swim.”     The body of the mermaid as it reclined under the glass case in Mr. Legg’s room on the Olympic showed a perfect human head, with hair probably four inches long, part of it white acid part brown. It has regular teeth and nose, but the size of the head is not larger than that of a new born baby. There are no evidences of scales on the body. A remarkable thing about the mermaid is the perfect shape of the hands and arms, and the muscles of the arms where they had been preserved by the preserving fluid were plainly visible.
    “Those who may doubt the truth of Mr. Legg’s statement will doubtless change their mind when they know that he is an intensely religious man, God fearing and devoting his life to the betterment of the sailor. Stripped to the waist, Mr. Legg presents a wonderful appearance. Tattooed on his chest are scriptural texts, and across his stomach is tattooed the most wonderful picture of the Lord’s Last Supper in colors. Mr. Legg is unable to say from what painting the picture tattooed on himself was taken, but it is a most wonderful work of art. When he turns around there is found tattooed on his back, between his shoulder blades, the Lord’s Prayer, and underneath that the hymn, “Nearer, My God, to Thee.”     “It was from my back, as I worked in the hold of this steamship that the engineers who sang “Nearer My God, to Thee,” upon the sinking Titanic learned the hymn. The unfortunate fellows worked with me on the Olympic, and other White Star vessels, and they could plainly read as they worked the inscription on my back.“
    Mr. Legg has lectured on the subject of his mermaid in England, giving all of the proceeds of his lectures to the Seamen’s missions in England. He thinks of quitting the sea and of exhibiting himself and the mermaid for the benefit of the various religious bodies connected with the sea-farers’ lives in Great Britain.
    “Until I found this mermaid I had heard the peculiar moans and whinings on the rocky shores of the Chinese sea often, but had never believed it possible that these sounds came from real mermaids. The place where I picked up this strange being lies between the Bonham and Ting Tong Lighthouses. I have never found another after this one, although I have heard of many cases where the natives have come across the mermaids.“
    Mr. Legg does not profess to explain the presence of these mermaids in the Chinese waters, but he declares that the one he has is absolute proof that they do exist.

Honolulu Star-Bulletin. (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii), 08 Nov. 1912. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.