The Cryptid Rhino - Part One

The rhinoceros has never been seen alive, it's existence is based on mere myth and legend. 

Few have provided hard evidence that would even suggest the rhino is an actual living, breathing, coughing, sweating, thinking, humorous and insightful land mammal. The rhino has been resigned to the ranks of other cryptids, the Yeti, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and of course, John Major. 

Over the years there have been several noted sightings;

In 1858, the wife of an aristocrat was buying some lovely lace from a stall in a marketplace, when she felt a heavy tap on her shoulder. "Yes?" she said, before turning, only to make eye contact with an animal she described as being - 

"a grey mass of shrivelled, wrinkled skin" 

The lady, also known as LADY X went on to say;

"I felt as if it was looking for something, perhaps an answer to a question it was too afraid to ask. I did wonder if it wanted some of my recently bought plums, I offered them, but he started shaking violently before mysteriously dissolving down a drain"

Lady X and her statement made the evening edition of The Times. The news of the dissolving rhinoceros started to spread, and within weeks a search began for any trace of it. None was found. Lady X also went onto witness other cryptids in and around inner-city London, The Mile Tall Panda-Whore, The Hideous Spider Horse, The Ghostly Greenish Brownish Goat, and The Christmassy Leopard. The authenticity of these claims however, are disputed. 

Lady X was tried at the old bailey for defrauding newspapers, and was sentenced to death. She was forced to eat a whole dog, including it's forehead and arms. She died shortly after, the dog lived well into it's eighties. 

It's claimed that Jack the Ripper was startled by a ghostly apparition of a Rhinoceros, as he was about to pummel a prostitute. He fled the scene, leaving the prostitute unharmed. The girl, Miss Thelby-Thatcher, thanked the Rhinoceros, and is reported to have even offered her services to the ghostly beast. The Rhinoceros replied that he wasn't that way inclined, and then evaporated into the victorian air, but not before doffing his cap and wishing her the best of luck in her endeavours. 

That evening Jack the Ripper ran all the way home, which at the time was a small room above a cobblers. Once inside, he hid inside a bureau which he often used to write threatening letters to the authorities and newspapers. He cried quietly to himself, shocked by what he had seen. A fortnight later, he emerged from the bureau, but had grown a rather repugnant tusk. From that day forth, Jack the Ripper was known as Dirty Tusked Thomas.

Silly Jack the Ripper.