The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1874-02-21
Manufactured Dwarfs .

, The business of manufacturing dWarls by
mutllatng children, unhappiy, was at ONT
time followed as Il profession by body o
villains who had reduced it TO a system. Ii
the preliminary chapters Of "The Man who
Laughs" Victor Hugo gives an account o
the operations of these persons, which is full
Of painful interest. They called thcmselve
"COmprachicos," and they labored to supply
the demand which existed "A couple of cen
turtles ago IN almost every European country
for dwarfs and distorted human beings for thu
| royal palaces and for the homes OF the wealthy
nobility. The king must have his misshaper
Jester, the fine lady her fantastic page or foot
man, the nObleman his hunchbaCk laCky, ant
even the Sultan his grotesquc builoon for the
seraglio. The demand was far greater than
the supply afforded by the freaks of nature
and the Comprachicos undertook to make
good the deficiency. They fabricated mon
sters upon large scale. The headquarters
OF this infamous fraternity were in England
but its ranks were recruited from all coun
tries and its operations were extended to 9th
err countries The organization had its orr
gin, we believe, in Spain.
The Comprachicos procured children for
their purpose in various ways. Sometimes
there was an heir to an estate who was in the
way of somebody, and he would be sold into
! inc UiuuS vi inc OGucT W nc ulullIuttu DC
yond recognition Sometimes pauper and
orphan children would be disposed of by rel
atvcs who did not wish to take care of them ;
and often, again, when the raw material was
not offered in sufficient quantities, the Com
prachicos would kidnap children 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 Victor Hugo expressed it,
touched up so that their parents would not
recognize them" Sometimes the COmpra
chicOS would operate on the spine in such Il
way that the child would have a bumped
back; or they would leave the dorsal column
straight and alter the countonance. They
would cut the muscles so that the little one
would wear perpetual and diabolical grin,
or would have its face set permanently IN
some fantastic shape. By peculiar process
| the growth of another would be stuned 50
that the child would be dwarf, while in 9th.
er cases the joints and muscles Of the limbs
would be SO treated that they would acquire
unnatural supplcness. These patients would
be sold to wshomen, who trained them as
gymnasts. Sometimes, also, the throat would
be manipulated for the purpose of giving the
child peculiar vocal powers. Charles IL had
q beng thus mutilated, whose office it was to
move around the palace at night, signalling
the hours by growing like cock. 4 certain
Dr. Conquest, of London, wrote volume up.
on this kind of surgery, in which he describes
the processes as if they had righttul place
among the practices of science.
The Comprachicos were suppressed by stat.
ute under William and Mary Their coun-
tcrpars are said, however, to exist at this day
in China. The Chinese operators take Il
child of two or three years old and put it in a
porcelain vase of some odd shape, but with
out 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.
At given period it 10 without remedy.
When the mould has taken and the monster
is made, they break the vase, and the child
comes out of it--7O.UdH