Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1873-12-12
Manufactured Dwarfs.

Dy muCllaClng cnllQren, unnapplly, was at
one time followed as profession by body
of villains who had reduced it to system.
In the preliminary chapters to L'Homme
Qui Rit, Victor Hugo gives an account of
the operations of these persons which is
full Of painful interest. They called them
selves "Comprachios, and they labored to
supply the demand which existed a 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
nobleman his hunchback lackey /; and even
the Sultan his grotesque buffoon for the Sc
ralgio. The demand was far greater than
the supply afforded by the freaks of nature,
and the Comprachios undertook to make
good the deficiency. They fabricated mon
sters upon large scale. The headqusr-
tiers of this infamous fraternity were in
England, but it's rankswere recruited from
all countries, and it's operations were ex-
tended to other countries. The organiza-
tion had it's origin, we believe, in Spain.
The Comprachios procured children for
their purpose in various ways. Sometimes
there was an heir to an estate who was in
somebody's way, and he would be sold into
the hands of the order to be mntilated be-
yond recognition. Sometimes pauper and
orphan children would be disposed of by
LOT; ,1,o n yrr1ch IN toll Of
them; and often, again, when the raw ma
terial was not offered in sufficient quanti-
ties, the Comprachios would kidnap chill
dren for their purposes. Once in their
hands, there was no possibility that child
could be rescued without mutilation.-
Taken. when very young, they were as Vic
tor Hugo expresses it, touched up sot that
| Their. parents would not recognize them. !"
Sometimes the Comprachios would operate
on the spine in such a way that the child
would have bumped back OF they would
| leave the dorsal column straight, and al
| ter the countenance. They would cut the
muscles so that the little one would wear a
perpetual and diabolical grin, or would
have its face set permanently in some fan
tastic shape. By a peculiar process, the
growth of another would be stunted so that
| the child would be a dwarf; while in other
Eases the joints and muscles Of the limbs
would be so treated that they would ac-
quire unnatural suppleness. These pa
tents would be sold to showmen, who
trained them as gymnasts. Sometimes,
| also, the throat would be manipulated for
the purpose of giving the child peculiar vo-
cal powers. Charles II had being thus
mutilated, whose office it was to move
around the palace at night signaling the
hours by growing like a cock. A certain
DR.. Conquest, Of London, wrote a volume
upon this kind Of surgery, in which he de-
scribes the processes as if they had right
full 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 operators
take child of two OF three years old, and
put it in porcelain vase of some odd
shape, but without lid or bottom, so that
the head and feet are exposed. In the day
time the vase is kept upright; 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. Alta given
period it is without remedy. When the
mould has taken, and the monster is made,
they break the vase, and the child comes
out of it.-Io-Day.