A FREAK OF NATURE.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 3318, 20 November 1883, Page 3

A FREAK OF NATURE.

In a small one-storey frame dwelling situated opposite the freight-house of the Danbury and Norwalk Railway at Norwalk, the “New York World” correspondent recently discovered a curious example of human deformity, whose existence has been preserved a secret for nearly seventeen years. At the house mentioned, Thomas Harden, a railway laborer, and his wife live with their son Tom. This boy was born seventeen years ago, a misshapen mite of humanity. By the advice of their parish priest tho sorrowing parents have carefully con cealed him from the public gaze. While the correspondent called at the house (Sunday) the unfortunate boy was found half sitting and half reclining in an invalid’s easy chair. He is totally devoid of shoulders, and from the centre of his back two arms with well-formed hands grew from a strange joint. The hands and arms are devoid of feeling, and are also afflicted with a strange continual motion, sweeping around in a circle like a windmill, the arms being stretched out at fall length and moving in opposite directions. The motion never ceases except when the arms are tied together, and are covered with scars from coming into contact with the wall, tables, chairs, etc. His body is further deformed by tho joining of the leg as far as the knee. Here the right log is turned back and upwards until the heel strikes tho centre of tho back, where it is firmly imbedded in the flesh. Ho is mentally bright, and conversed freely and intelligently with tho reporter about the few books his parents had been able to provide for him, and about tho articles he had read in the newspapers, which arc occasionally supplied to him. Said the mother, “Ho is a great care to us, being unable to help himself at all. But ho is just as dear to mo as if ho was like other children. I suppose ho could bo oxhibited, but as long as bis father or myself have life in our bodies to work for him he never shall bo.”