THE CAMPRACHICOS.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3171, 12 April 1871, Page 3

THE CAMPRACHICOS.

Victor Hugo, in " L' Homme gui Rit," describes, apparently believing what he describes as perfectly authentic, a gang of wretches : — The Comprachicos, or Comprapcquenos, were a hideous and nondescript association of wanderers, famous in the 17th century, forgotten in the 18th, and unknown in the 19th. Comprachicos, the same as Comprapcquenos, is a compound Spanish word, signifying child merchants. The Comprachicos traded in children. They bought them and sold them. They did not steal them The kidnapping of children is another branch of industry. Ancl what did they make of these children '? Monsters. Comprachicos worked on men the same as Chinese work on trees. A sort of fantastic and stunted thing left their hands ; it was ridiculous and wonderful. They would touch up a little being with such skill that its father could not have know it. Sometimes they left the spine straight and remade the' face. They unmarked a child as one might unmark a pocket-handkerchief. Products, destined for tumblers, had their joints dislocated in a masterly manner — you would have said they had been boned. Thus gymnasts were made. In China, from time immemorial, they have possessed a certain refinement of industry and art. Jt is the art of moulding a living man. They take a child two or three years'

old, put him in a porcelaid vase, more or less grotesque, which is made without top or bottom, to allow egress for tie head and feet. During the day the vase is set upright, and al night is laid down to allow the child to sleep. Thus the child thickens without growing taller, filling up with his compressed flesh and distorted bones the relief in the vase. This develop, ment in a bottle continues many years. At a given time it becomes irreparable. When they consider that this is accomplished, and the monster made, they break the vase. The child comes out — and, behold, there is a man in shape of a mug! It was convenient ; by ordering your dwarf betimes you were able to have it any shape you wished. The Comprachicos, allowing for a shape which separates a trade from fanaticism, were analagous to the Stranglers of India. They' lived among themselves in gangs. They \VP.re of all countries, Under tbe name of Comprsohicos, fraternised English, French, Castiiiiajjs, Germans, Italians. The Comprachicos were rather a fellowship than a tribe : rather a residuum than a fellowship. It w»s all the riffraff of the universe, having for their trade a crime."