Look back to a simpler time, certainly not a better time, but one full of smoggy poisonous air, all kinds of new chemicals in the water and opiets ran like wine through the back alleys and charnel houses of all the big cities.
Sure enough these cities like london, paris and new york all turned out to have these strange legends of men that were not serial killers or in most cases to degenerates but for lack of a better descriptive term just 'kinda retarded' but their antics made the papers and their legends were born.
But how do we not know if characters like Spring Heeled Jack werent just the Chris Chans of their time? The village idiots time had passed but serious mental diagnoses had yet to catch them for what they were.
Just how deep and far back into history does the cow phenomena stretch?