While passing through the Rice hotel last night a Post reporter observed a portly oh gentleman laughing heartily at something he had read in a newspaper. He pointed out the article to a friend. It was an account of a sea serpent which railroad king J. J. Hill is alleged to have seen while on a pleasure trip in Northern waters.
    “I’ll bet old Jim had a bully good time,” said the gentleman. “The serpent was 225 feet long, so the account states. That ain’t so long, after all. I’ve seen a few myself. But the darndest yarn I ever heard of is recorded as a fact by S. Baring-Gould, a fact which was well authenticated and which comes down to us unvarnished and unimpaired. Remember, it as a fact.
    Once upon a time, after a violent tempest, which broke down the dykes in Holland and flooded the lowlands, some girls in town of Edam in West Freisland, going in a boat, to milk their cows and rescue their poultry, observed a mermaid in shallow water and embarrassed in the mud. They took it out of the water, placed it in the boat and brought it to the town, where they dressed it in female attire and taught it, by dint of coaxing, to spin and assist in household work. It fed with them and took part in all their pleasures, but could never be taught to speak.
    It was afterwards brought to Harlem, where it lived peaceably for several years, though still showing a strong inclination for water, it was instructed in its duty to God and made reverences before a crucifix. With such a well authenticated story story as that we can not be surprised at Hill’s serpent, and well may we ask, with Tennyson:

Who would be
A mermaid fair
Singing alone.
Combing her hair,
Under the sea
in a golden curl,
With a comb of pearl
On a throne?

The Houston Daily Post. (Houston, Tex.), 17 July 1902. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.