The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-11-27 00:00:00

EXHIBITION OF DWARFS IN LONDON.

Two of the most remarkable dwarfs that have ever
been seen in England are now exhibiting in the
Piccadilly-hall, in London. Their names are Miss
Lucia Zarate and General Mite; and they are de-
scribed in the bill as the smallest man and woman in
the world—a statement which seems extremely likely
to be true, when it is learnt that Lucia Zarate weighs
01b. and stands 20in. high, and that the little general
weighs 91b. and stands 21in. high.

Lucia Zarate was born on January 2, 1863, at San
Carlos, near Vera Cruz, in Mexico, of Mexican
parents, who attend at Piccadilly, and are swarthy
people of Spanish or mixed Spanish and Indian race
and of ordinary size. They have other children of
ordinary else. Lucia is not beautiful in appearance:
she bears some likeness to the Aztecs who were
married in London with great ceremony some 20
years ago, but is shorter than they. She speaks
a few words of English, is lively, quick, and intelli-
gent, and very fond of commanding the pair of
larger dwarfs by whom she and her companion are
attended. She is dark in complexion. It is stated that
when she was first born she was placed in cotton wool
in a little jewel box instead of a cradle, that she
weighed at birth 21b., and gained in a year her
present size. She has been exhibited in the United
States for nine or ten years.

General Mite was born October 2, 1864, of American
parents, in Shenandoah County, New York. He is a
fair-haired, well-formed, intelligent, good-looking little
fellow, with a great idea of dignity and deportment.
It is stated that at birth he was 9in. long, and weighed
Vb., and that he grew till he reached the age of eight
years, since which time he has been stationary in size.
He has been exhibited, it is said, for six years in
America. The two little people are shown in company
with two other dwarfs, Miss Jenny Quigley, of Glas-
gow, and Commodore Foot, a citizen of the United
States, to whose knees they scarcely reach.
Most people who see the two American Midgets
dwarfs now exhibiting will imagine that e y are the
smallest beings whom Nature or a mysterious art
ever produced. It appears, however, that among the
beings of diminutive stature whom it was at one time
a freak of fashion to keep in every great family (as
the pictures of Da Vinci, Raffaele, and Velazquez
show) there have been found some as small as or
smaller than the remarkable couple now to be seen.
Si Jeffery Hudson died 3ft. 9in. high, but according
to his own account he was only 181 n. high, till he at-
tained the age of 30. Mention is made of a dwarf at
Cairo, 18in. high, of one which was IGin. higk and 37
years old, and of a German dwarf girl who, at nine
years old, was 18in. high.

There is a tribe of dwarfs called Akkas in Africa of
a height of from 70 to 90 centimetres—a greater
heiot, however, than that of the Midgets now ex-
hibiting; but the height of General Mite was more
exactly paralleled by the dwarf mentioned in the
Gentleman's Magazine for 1735 (quoted by Wood in
"Dwarfs and Giants ") .

"A dwarf from France arriv'd in town,
Measuring but inches twenty-one,
At Court a wonder great was shown,
Where he, though aged 46,
Performed 20 childish tricks?'
Dwarfs of such a size are entirely exceptional. It is
not uncommon for exhibited dwarfs to be 3ft. high.
When they much exceed this stature they retire into
private life, to be waited on,jaccording to Dickens, in
the "Old Curiosity Shop") by broken-down giants,
whose lives they make a burden by pricking their legs
with pins.