Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1882-11-17
WOMEN'S FREAKS.
One of Them Undergoing the Painful
Process Of Tattooing for Exhibition
Her Whole Body Covered.
One Hundred Beauties Competing for q
Prize in New York-A Cannibal
Negress in North Carolina.

New YORK, November 16.-The active
competition between the tattooed women
awakens interest. Two in New York have
voluntarily submitted themselves 10 the pro-
cess of pnncturing and poisoning necessary
to produce the emblazonmeut which makes
Capt. Costentenus as picturesque as his
name; and now q third is undergoing q few
months of torture in order that she may be
so dis6gured that curiosity seekers may cape
at her. This last young female says Of
another woman: Anybody could be tat
tooed like her, but it takes the nerve to have
a solid picture pricked in"
"And are you really illustrated wit h cuts
all oveIP asked reporter.
Not yet," was the reply; "but Pm getting
10 be-"
An engagement was made for the reporter
to be present when the next operation was
performed. The reporter was startled, not to
say shocked, by the promptness with which
she displayed various parts of her anatomi-
cal structure when he called at her room. 1t
seemed trif1e immodest for her to show in
private what she proposes TO exhibit in pub
lie for a living; but after brief struggle
with his sense of propriety he looked with
great interest al certainly the most remark
able collection of pictures ever exhibited.
The gentleman who devotes his days to the
puncturing of his wife's epidermis is sailor,
or has been one, and has imbibed fo'castle
notions OF art, together with his knowledge
of tatiooing. Accordingly, his wife's arms,
legs and body look as If she had had a Eio-
lent eruption of hags, tombslonea, allsgorical
figures and moral and patriotic notices
"God bless our homes" "Procrssiination
is the thief of Time" and "The Union for
ever" eli up the interstices between Melpo-
meme, Calypso and the grave of Thomas JEFF.
ferson, while a large tri-color adorns the
right thigh, and free-hand sketch Of nman-
o'-war is pricksd into the left. Scores of de-
signs, no two OF which are alike, have been
engraved, so to speak, in the flesh, and the
vac ant spaces are being filled in day by day
by others.
"Can see you put on a new picture?"
asked the reporter.
The tzitsoer carefully wetied a small
camels-hair brush in some India ink, COM
mouly so called, but which he explained
was really Chinese ink, and began to exam
inc his subject to see where he should begin.
After turning her around two or three times
he selected a small white spot on her left
shoulder blade, and rapidly sketched heart
punctnred by a Cupid's arrow. Then be
chose one of several punches of needles and
began to prick the ink in.
81 go Just deep enough to draw blood, !"
said he; "when that comes l stop. Then it
Immediately swells up like this" and he
put his finger on raw sore on her arm.
'tAfter three or four days the scab comes of,
and it looks like this and he put his finger
on her left knee, where there was an angry
looking blotch of the shape of bird. ''Ihen
the skin peels off twice, and in about week
or more il is all DONE"
The woman undergoing the tattooing is
the daughter of well-to-do farmer in Penn
sylvania, and is supported by remittances
from home, while her husband is devoting
himself to garnishing her for her debut. AS
soon az she shall have been sufficiently bedi-
zened, which he thinks will be in few
weeks, she is to fill an engagement of a year
at $50 a week. Something like the fret
years receipts have been used up while she
has been undergoing the torture of prepare
ton.