This is complete trivia, pretty much off-topic and really rather odd, but it is a slow news day and it really did make me smile. My only excuse is that the crocodile involved was shot in region of the Faiyum depression.
The only known drawing of ‘Mr Shuffles’, reproduced here from the Manchester Illustrated News 1847.
Mr Shuffles was an early automaton covered with the skin of a crocodile. The crocodile was shot near Faiyum on the banks of the Nile in 1842 by Sir Edward Hudson, pioneering cartographer of the African interior. Sir Edward commissioned his friend, the watchmaker Herber Jones, to create a ‘moving machine’ for the skin.
Mr Shuffles was a star attraction at the Hudson household, serving tea to the ladies and cigars and port to the gentlemen.
Click on the above link or the image to see the full sized image and read more details.
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