New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1853-09-22
DIsGTSTING EXHIBITIONS.


DISGUSTING EXHIBITIONS.
1t would really that portion of the cOmnuni-
y are only fully satisfied with the monstrous In the
matter of good exhibitions it is not sufficient that they
brstle in the City, the spos of Europe, artistically
speaking being laid at feet, from the Crystal Pal
ace to Juens nightly ovatons TO the it is not
sufficient that name what science art may, it has
exponent in some shape other easily open to in
yestigaton it is not sufficient that if the denizen of
the City be weary of brickwals the dashing speed
of our present mode of travel will place him in few
minutes in the country All these sights and sounds
are insufficient to please respectively the eye and
and nurture the taste The normal and beautiful are
inadequate the unnatural and hideOus must be called
into view. Hence it is that Broadway snever without
one or more damnabe monsters exhibition. Several
are prominently paraded there. The first that
meets the eye on going up is a Fat Woman, weighing
upwards, say the bills, of seven hundred pounds.
flying flag has portrait of this oleagenOus Venus who
appears rocking in q sea of what the doctors call adj
pose deposit and the butchers suet Is it really such
an agreeable sight to behold woman full five times
heavier than she ought TO be, according to the
ment of the classic grdle Is beauty that thing joy
forever SO paing to the sight that must resort to
the contemplation of pyramid of painting talow-a
mountain ofperspirng grease-to find out how far the
age of undiseased mankind may be perverted by aber
rations from nature, and huge and melancholy mon
strosity take its place Why should the misfortune of
that woman be paraded in public Why should her
colossal folds of obesity be brazeny thrust in view and
even exaggerated and caricatured in the donbly dis
gushing flag which invites spectators to her apartments
1t is enough that she is physically enormous, without
being made personally public.
So too the exhibition of the sleeping man. Here is
poor wretch who, as Dr. Dixon says, has less vitality
than an oyster placed before the general gaze He has
been asleep five years except that about every two
or four months he reyiyes for few minutes He is
wofuly emaciated. His face is nhumanly ugly. He
is more horrible than death-bed-more elegisc than
a corpse. He is living libel on human exstence--a
fierce degradation Of manhood-not living, not dying,
not dead-a shocking denial of precedents facts and
possbilitiesa thing that should be kept out of sight
and notice and yet he is pushed into the van OF pub
lcties and all the world called in TO behold the sorry
wretched dreg of humanity.
Then comes-proh pudor-A Bearded Lady An
tique goddess OF beauty what descent is here Mo
Their of the graces-insprer OF ksses-alna mater-a
woman with beard
TH sesn coy y1 and iR bard to please etc,
We have stolen this number 10 of all Regular
Toasts at public banquetings the application is
beautiful when thou hast pended thy chin the decora
tons of hairy pard-of shylock-of Muscoyite
Avsunt quit my sight Take any other form than this
Then next on exhibitions comes an hideOus little
dwarf; the King of Lliputians, called pale and
trembling little whfeta living abortion-an IDIOT old
az twenty months--a caricature at once of age and
babyhood-the crib and the coffin cheek byjOwl Why
should the existence Of this poor little wretch be made
the object of vicious curiosity and hungry speculation
In connection with these repulsive sights, may
mention another that is peculiar to American cities,
eminently so to New-York. We mean ready made
coffin warehouses 1t would seem that according to
some popular mythology or other it is dreary thing
to die and the parsphernaia Of death should be kept
out of sight But our most public thoroughfares are
selected for the exposition of the errors Of mortality
Large glass windows and doors reveal long lines Of
collins of all sizes-some Immediately in the windows
sweltering in black and the gded and plated decora-
tions which bad taste and vanity call into requi
ston TO wreath around corruptng flesh and lite colonies
of worms We are even informed, by card tackled to
the black cloth that prize coffin such as the one dig
PLAYED ia identical with that in which Henry Clay Is
bured-as though it was hat or coat of the latest
fashion The public is invited TO turn the family circle
into the family vault and take daily drive in hearse
Out upon these hdeous spectaeles OF abnormal IA
ture and abused ingenuity Let the appeals to the eye
and the understanding be pure and real and the Vitat
ed taste which would burl abominable sights into the
face of the world be corrected and sound sentiment
take its place.