The weekly Shasta courier., 1873-12-13
Manufactured Dwarfs.

The business of manufacturing dwarfs
by mutilating children, unhappily. was
at one time followed as profession by a
BODY OF Villains who had reduced it to a
system. In the preliminary CHAPTERS to
L'Homnae Qui Rit, Victor Hugo gives an
account of the operations of these per
sons, which is full of painful interest
They called themselves ''Comprachicos. !"
and they labored to supply the demand
which existed couple of centuries ago,
IN almost every European country, for
dwarfs and distorted human beings for
the royal palaces and for the homes of
the wealthy nobility. The king must
have his misshapen jester; the fine lady
her fantastic page or footman; the no.
bieman his hunchback lackey; and even
the Sultan his grotesque bufoon for the
seragllo. The demand was far greater
than the supply afforded by the freaks
of nature, and the Comprachicos under
took to make good the deficiency. They
fabricated monsters upon large scale.
The headquarters of this infamous fra
ternity were in England, but its ranks
were recruited from all countries, and
its operations were extended to other
countries. The organization had its ori-
gin, we believe, in Spain.
The Comprachicos procured children
for their purpose in various ways
Sometimes there was an heir to an es ate
who was in the way of somebody, and
he would be sold into the hands of the
order to be mutilated beyond recogni-
tlon: Sometimes pauper and orphan
children would be disposed of by rela-
tives who did not wish to take care of
them; and often, again, when the raw
material was not offered in sufficient
quantities, the Comprachicos would
kldnap children for their purposes.
Once in their hands, there was no posi-
| blllty that child could be rescued
without mutilation. Taken when very
young, they were, as Victor Hugo ex-
presses it, touched up, so that their
own parents would not recognize them. :"
Sometimes the Comprachicos would op-
crate on the spine in such a way that
the child would have bumped back :;
or they would leave the dorsal column
straight, and alter the countenance.
They would cut the muscles so that the
little one would wear a perpetual and
dlabolical grin, or would have its face
set permanently in some fantastical
shape. By a peculiar process, the
growth of another would be stunted so
that the child would be a dwarf; while
in other cases the joints and muscles of
the limbs would be so treated that they
would acquire unnatural suppleness.
These patients would be sold to show
men, who trained them as gymnasts
Sometimes, also, the throat would be
manipulated for the purpose of giving
the child peculiar vocal powers. Charles
II. had being thus mutilated, whose
office it was to move around the palace
at night signaling the hours by growing
like cock. A certain DIR. Conquest of
London, wrote volume upon this kind
of surgery, in which he describes the
processes as if they had rightful place
among the practices of science.
The Comprachicos were suppressed by
statute under William and Mary. Their
counterparts are said, however, to exist
at this day in China: The Chinese op-
orators take child of two or three years
old, and put it in a porcelain vase of
some odd shape, but without lid or bot
tom, so that the head and feet are expos
ed. In the daytime the vase is kept up
right: at night, it is laid upon its side,
so that the child may sleep. Thus the
child grows, filling up the spaces in the
vase with its compressed flesh and
twisted bones. This growth in the
bottle lasts for several years. At a
given period it is without remedy.
When the mold is taken, and the mon
ster is made, they break the vase. and
the child comes out of IT'D. p. Hotch
in To-Day.