NOVEL SUGGESTION

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXI, Issue 4953, 9 February 1937, Page 6

NOVEL SUGGESTION

NOT FAVOURED A suggestion, put forward by Herr Julius Gont, himself a midget, that a modern Lilliputian colony should be founded in Budapest is not likely to come to fruition. Herr Gont estimates that there are 56,000 midgets in the world, and thinks it would be a grand idea if they lived in their own miniature city. Here is the view of Mr Leonard, of Leonard, Semon and Sonia, one of the world’s best known variety troupe of midgets, who was interviewed on the subject. “Who wants to live in Hungary?” queried Mr Leonard. “And if we lived there in a colony how would we make a living?” “The only work for midgets is on the stage and screen, or as pages,” he continued. “As a large community we could not live.” His ten-year-wife Sonia, also his stage partner, chimed in: “Once we visited a friend in Germany. She had everything in miniature. It was very nice for us, but how could we entertain our full-sized friends?”

“There was a midget village of 250 at the Paris Exhibition in 1910,” resumed Mr Leonard, “Herr Gont will be lucky if he gets a thousand.” There is much pathos in the life of a midget, hut Mr Leonard sees only the comic side. He, and his partners, his wife and his brother Semon, have the spontaneous glee and happiness of children combined with the wisdom of the normal adult. Mellow age has not damped the ardour of their joy of living. They may be handicapped in life by being abnormal, but never have I met people so happy. Why they should be midgets is a mystery that doctors cannot explain. Mr Leonard has six sisters, three brothers, and many nephews and nieces, yet only one brother, Semon, is a midget. None of his ancestors were midgets. His wife has a 6ft sister. Yet he has a midget friend with four midget brothers.