GIANTS AND DWARFS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXII, Issue 8904, 21 September 1889, Page 6

GIANTS AND DWARFS.

(Chambers’ Journal.) It has always been a matter for discussion whether there ever existed, or still exist, any nations who may absolutely come under the terms of Giants and Dwarfs. In many ancient writings are mentioned various races of Pygmies as inhabiting the cold northern climes of Scythia, or the tropical deserts of Libya and Asia Minor. Herodotus also speaks of a race of little men of inky-black complexion who inhabited a large city on a river which flowed from west to east of Libya, and swarmed with horrible crocodiles. Ctesias, another Greek traveller, a contemporary of Xenophon, states that be saw in Central India a race of Pygmies only two feet in stature; they inhabited a province in which the animals were proportionately small, the sheep being no larger than new-born lambs, and the horses, cattle, asses, and mules no larger than a ram. Aristotle mentioned likewise a nation of dwarfs, and places them in Central Africa; whereas Pliny gives Thrace as their original cradle. Ptolemy in his History talks of a “little people” called the Pechinians, whom he describes as inhabiting a large portion of the eastern frontiers of Ethiopia. In later times an English sailor, Andrew Battel, who was taken prisoner by the Portuguese in 1588, and carried into Congo, relates in his book called “ Strange Adventures ” that ho met with a nation of dwarfs called the “ Matimbas.” A Dutch traveller, Oliver Dapper, also describes a little nation of elephant hunters called the Mimos or Bakke-Bakkes, whom he found in 1686 inhabiting a district near the Congo river, called the kingdom of Macoco.

One of the latest travellers who make mention of a dwarf nation is M. du Chaillu, who in 1860 speaks of a strange people, of wild and timid habits, whom he found inhabiting a large tract of land in the country of Ashango; they were styled Ovongos by their neighbours the Ashoungas, but they neither intermarried with nor cultivated the ground of the nation amongst whom they lived. The Ovongos were negroes of hideous aspect and yellow complexion, and measured about four feet five inches in height.

As regards giants, primitive traditions are as full of accounts of men of enormous) stature as they are of dwarfs. The poets and historians of antiquity aver that the human race did not begin to deteriorate till the time of Homer; sculptures exist, and are now preserved in the British Museum, of the frieze of the temple of the Athena Polias at Priene—one of the twelve lonian cities of Asia Minor—representing a combat between men and giants; and similar ones are to be seen in the temples of Selinonte, Argos, Agrigente, Athens and Pergamus. Pliny says that on the occasion of a terrible earthquake in Italy, a fissure opened, revealing the skeleton of a man embedded upright in the earth, measuring about twenty-six feet in height! Plutarch goes further; he declares that a skeleton was found by Sertoriua at Tangier, in Mauritania, measuring about forty feet; and Phlegon of Lydia, in his Treatise on Wonders, says that there was discovered in the Cimmerian Bosporus and in Africa a vast number of skeletons averaging between twelve and fifteen feet in stature.

The traveller Magellan recounts in hi travels, written in 1520, that in latitude 31deg., near the mouth of the Plata river, he met with a gigantic tribe of Patagonians. He says that he measured many of them, and that they exceeded seven and often nine feet in height. But whether it is that the race is degenerating, or that Magellan exaggerated his measurements, it is certain that they do not at the present day exceed seven feet, and their normal height is about six and a half feet; the women being quite as tall, and as powerfully proportioned as the men. At all times and in all countries, kings and nobles had a fancy for including amongst their retainers either a giant or a dwarf, sometimes both. Frederick the Great had his corps of gigantic grenadiers 5 and in the Tower of London may be seen a lance and some enormous armour of sixteenth-century work, which doubtless belonged to some giant knight or trooper of the king’s bodyguard. James I. had attached to his person a porter named Walter Parsons, commonly called the Staffordshire giant, a handsome, brave, and strong young man, who bad began life as a farrier. His height was seven feet seven inches, and his portrait exists, engraved by Glover. Parsons lived on into the reign of Charles 1., and was succeeded in his office by another giant, William Evans, who was two inches taller than his predecessor. Cromwell also had a valet named Daniel, who was seven feet six inches in height, but of weak intellect. He unfortunately ended his days in Bedlam, having become possessed with the idea that he had been sent on the earth to prophesy coming events. Contemporary with Daniel lived Anthony Payne, a handsome and clever young farmer in Cornwall, a tenant of Sir Seville Granville at Stowe. He was as remarkable for bis wit as for his strength and stature, which exceeded seven feet. This county has always been as famous for its big men as is Yorkshire; and to this day the proverb exists, “As long as Tony Payne’s foot.” After a career of many vicissitudes and long military service in the Stuart cause, Anthony Payne died at a good old age, and was buriedlin a vault in Stratton Church.

In IGS6, and in the earlier part of the same century, two gigantic negroes were shown about London. They were said to ha the sons of kings of two African tribes, and were captured by slavers, who brought them to this country. The first was Giolo, son of the king of the Moangi tribe. The other was known as “ the Black Prince,” and became converted to Christianity, and was admitted as a member of the household of the family of Clifton, living at Clifton, near Nottingham. He was christened Joseph; and a mark may still, we believe, be seen in Clifton Churchyard which gives his height as seven feet. Giants are usually not gifted with any more beautythan their opposites in creation, and are generally more remarkable for their awkardneaa and stupid stolid looks than for any natural grace or intellectual brilliancy. There was, however, an exception to this general rule in the person of Maximilian Christopher Muller, a German giant, who travelled about in Prance and England in the reigns of Louis SIY. and George 11. He was a man of splendid build and noble proportions, with a handsome and striking countenance, and measured exactly seven feet eight inches in height. His hand was twelve inches long trom the wrist to the tip of the middkfinger. He died in London in 1734, aged sixty, not long after Hogarth had intro.

duced his portrait into hia famous picture of “ Southwark Fair.”

It is a curious fact that the population of Prance has rarely produced a giant; Great Britain, Germany, Poland, and Switzerland carry off the palm 5 and this may perhaps be attributable to the prevalence in Prance of a vegetarian diet, which does not tend to develop to so great an extent the growth of muscle as does the stronger diet of meat.

The eighteenth century, to judge by contemporary letters and newspapers, seems to have been more than usually prolific in giants and giantesses. Horace Walpole mentions a giant and giantess who were on view respectively at Spring Gardens, and at Half-moon Court, Ludgate Hill. They were both, it seems, handsome and well-proportioned persons, and without the usual awkward ungainliness of their kind. At this time, also, appeared a young Italian giantess seven feet in height, “ who was the admiration” —said the handbills—“of the Emperor of Germany, of eight Kings of Europe, and of the Grand Czar of Moscow himself.” Her appearance seems to have been followed, in 1742, by that of Cajanus, the famous Swedish giant, commonly called the “ living Colossus,” who came over to England and established himself at a house opposite the Mansion House. He was the son of a pastor of a little village in Finland, and stood eight feet four inches in his socks. In 1755 London was visited by another Italian giant, named Bernardo Gigli or Gilli, who measured eight feet in height, and seems to have created an immense sensation by the colossal proportions of his limbs. But no giant ever created such a furore as did Charles Byrne, the Irish giant, who was eight feet eight inches in height, and possessed of enormous strength. He was clever and shrewd, and full of the natural wit of his mother country; but unfortunately the large fortune he rapidly gained by the exhibition of himself led him into habits of gluttony and intemperance, and he died at the early age of two-and-twenty, leaving instructions that his body was to be buried at sea; but the College of Surgeons in some way obtained bis corpse for the sum of J2BOO, according to certain reports ; and the skeleton was “ set up ” in their Museum by William Hunter, the famous anatomist.

Shortly after Byrne’s death, another Irith giant exhibited himself in London, by name Patrick Cotter, alias O’Brien. He was so attenuated that, tall as he was, he appeared even taller. His height was eight feet seven inches. Feeble and debilitated in health, he could only walk by supporting himself on the shoulders of two tall men walking in front of him, resting a hand on a shoulder of each. Many amusing stories are related of him. One evening, at a Masonic dinner, he took out of his pocket the celebrated dwarf Count Borulauski, and set him upon the table, to the astonishment of all the guests. Some time after, whilst staying at Bath, he nearly terrified a nightwatchman out of his wits by taking off the top of a street lamp and lighting his pipe at the flame. He was of an amiable and gentle disposition, but not remarkable for any intellectual capacitity. Since his day to the present time, London has only seen four giants of any abnormal height or size—namely, James Tolies, eight feet six inches in height in 1819 j Scott; Chang; and Herr Winckelmeier, the Bavarian giant. Of giantesses. Miss Scott and Pauline Marie Elizabeth Wedde are the only colossal ladies who have astonished the eyes of the sight-seeing world. The latter, called the Queen of the Amazons, was bora .at Beu-Eendorf, in Thuringia, on Jan. 31,1866, and introduced to the London public at the Alhambra in a piece entitled “ Babil and Bijou.” She was good-looking, and of a handsome, well-proportioned figure, and measured about eight feet four inches in height. Of her subsequent history and career we have not been able to trace any account, since her Provincial tour in Prance, after exhibiting herself in England. It is a curious fact that giants rarely exceed the age of forty or forty-five, aiid few amongst them ever show signs of much intellectual capacity. They are as a rule good-tempered, indolent, and placid; their opposite extremes, the dwarfs, being irritable, active, clever, and ill-tempered. Dwarfs may be divided into two sections, firstly, those who are bom so, and remain dwarfs ail their lives from childhood till maturity; and secondly, those who become dwarfs from some accident in the early months or years of childhood. It may be remarked that those dwarfs who come under the first head are often noticeable for their shrewdness and intellectual capacity, combined with much childish vanity and an overweening love of dress and admiration. Those, on the other hand, who are deformed and show an unnatural development of any special limb, are as a rule irritable, semi-idiotic, and incapable of any high degree of mental capacity.

One of the most celebrated dwarfs of whom we read in history was Nicholas Ferry, the dwarf of King Stanislas of Poland, who was remarkable for his wit, good temper, and intellectual attainments and accomplishments. Next after him in celebrity ranks a female dwarf named Babet Sohreier, who was born at Piegelsbach, near Mannheim, on Oct. 31, 1810. Her parents were poor labourers, hale and hearty people, who permitted visitors to see their wonderful child, but would never consent, poor as they were, to exhibit her for any pecuniary benefit. Babet was perfectly formed, although when she was born she weighed only a pound and a half. She grew till she was about two feet and a half high, and there stopped. Her health was always good, and her character amiable and lively. It is a strange fact that the length of life of dwarfs seems to be in proportion to their size and stamina; they arrive at maturity quicker than a normal human being, and age quicker. We read of this in the case of the famous English dwarf Hopkins, who lived about 1751. At fifteen years old he measured two feet seven inches in height, and weighed only thirty pounds. Up to this age he had the appearance of a fresh smooth-skinned youth; but suddenly an extraordinary semblance of the most descripit old age began to creep upon him. He became bent, crooked, and torn with an asthmatic cough; sight and hearing began to fail, and his teeth to drop out or decay. So attenuated and feeble did he become, that he could not walk without a stick, and presented all the appearance of a withered and aged man. Before these signs of decay came upon him his weight had been nineteen pounds; but now he lost nearly six pounds, and visibly shrank, till he died in about a year from sheer decrepitude and old age. His parents were fine tall healthy people, and there had been no previous member of bis family who showed a similar abnormal condition. He died on March 19, 1754, aged seventeen years and two months. Although dwarfs generally attain a greater age than giants, still they rarely pass threescore and ten. There are, however, two notable exceptions to this rule, in the persons of Amias Clowes, the famous Matlock dwarf, who died at that place in 1874, at the ripe age of one hundred and three, his height being three feet and a half. He had caused to be built for himself a little house eight feet square, furnished with articles suitable to his size. The other instance was that of Peter the Great’s favourite and dwarf, a woman he called Poupee, whose height was that of a child of six. She was remarkably pretty, lively, and clever, and the Emperor had an extraordinary affection for her. She lived to pass the age of one hundred years without ever having suffered from any illness or infirmity. There may still be seen in the Ducal Palace at Mantua six little rooms opening one cut of the other, which were constructed by order of one of the Dukes of Mantua for the special occupation of his favourite dwarfs. The walls of these apartments are but six feet high, and the floors eight feet square, and they are reached by two staircases of small steps. These rooms are at present denuded of all furniture, and the doors even have been taken off their ninges.

la our own times, no dwarf has created more sensation than Ccarles S. Stratton, commonly known as ‘ ‘ G enerai TomThumb.’ His. career of self-exhibition was one -long.

success both to himself and to Barnum* - who undertook to show him about. Hia tour in Europe alone brought him fifty thousand pounds. He married Lavinia Warren, one of two dwarf sisters who accompanied him on hie tours. Of this marriage was born one child, a girl, who died in 1866, when about three years old. Tom Thumb himself died in 1883; and hk widow, we believe, married again another American dwarf. General and Mrs White. succeeded to the celebrity and admiration formerly bestowed on General Tom Thumb, and charmed the public by their amusing ways and imitations of popular actors and singers.