Wednesday, January 3, 2007

THE JACKAL OF SEVENOAKS


March 16th 1905 SEVENOAKS

Farm & Home spoke of an elusive beast which author Charles Fort documented in his Lo! (1931) book. Many sheep were discovered locally, they had been disemboweled and bitten in the shoulder. Hardly the work of a dog which would have ripped and torn its prey for spite.
On the 1st March 1905 more than sixty armed local folk hunted the marauding creature and finally shot it. It was a jackal, which was killed by a gamekeeper.
Fort added: “ There is no findable explanation, nor attempted explanation, of how the animal got there”.
Blythe News reported, on March 14th that the jackal was on show at a Derbyshire taxidermists, with the Derby Mercury adding, on the 15th that the body of the creature was being exhibited by a Mr Hutchinson of London Road, Derby.
Image taken from postcard (Essenhigh Cork & Co.)

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