The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1883-07-05
A Strange Collapse.

KNISS Jeanne Duval of 1926
" O'Farrell street was one Of
EcfSS the incest girls that ever
S6s0S breathed. If she could have
breathed more easily her circle OF
acquaintance might have included
as many admirers as it contained
sympathizers. AS it was, all her
friends-and they were many
were sympathizers. for Miss Duval
had an affection. In two words.
the poor girl was outrageously fat.
| Up to the age of five Jeanne was a
fragile little thing, and her parents
In. Duval is part proprietor of a
restaurant on Market street-feel-
ing alarmed about the health of
their only child, sent her to a brother
of madame's, who keeps a vineyard
In Sonoma county. Jeanne staid in
the country for three years, and
came back as chubby as one of
RaphaePs angels. Nor was the
change in her condition temporary.
She continued to plump up until at
twelve she was the wonder of her
class at the Rincon Grammar
School. She spread and grew, waxed
in rotundity and Incl eased in stature
until from bouncing girl she be-
came young giantess. Her pro
portions at seventeen were astonish-
ing. Her shoulders were huge, her
corpulence immense, and her limbs
like those of a well-fed Titan. But
borne down as she was by the bur
den of her obesity, Miss Duval never
lost the sweet amiability of her dis
position. She preserved that, to-
gether with her pleasant girlish face,
and though debarred from nearly
all the pleasures of society and pub
lie amusements, she never COM
planned. She knew that whenever
she appeared on the streets her
Falstaffian figure made her an OBJ
ject Of wonder and remark, but she
pulled complacently and returned
home out of breath, but never out
of temper. It must not be supposed,
however, that she accepted her i'm
mensity as incurable, or at least un-
diminishable.
She drank a pint of vinegar every
morning for a month, but it acted
like "parritch' upon q Scotchman.
She practiced the Bantam plan for
whole spring and gained flesh at the
rate of three pounds a week. She
was once more sent to her uncle's in
the country, with instructions to
ride hard every morning, but after
killing one poor horse her gentle
soul revolted at what she knew must |
be cruelty to animals, and she re-
turned home rounder, and roster,
and vaster than ever. Her father |
put up horizontal bar in the bath |
room, and her mother made her |
gymnasium suit, but she broke the |
bar on the third day and outgrew
her bloomers on the fourth. Then |
she tried walking up and down the
little strip of garden that lies at the !
back of the house, but, after ramb-
ling there with patient perseverance
for fortnight, she had to desist on
account Of the dangerous settling of
the party wall. Finally it was de
cided to quit experiment and-like
Mr.. Gilhooly and the gondolas-to
leave nature to take her course.
Her course was one Of increased
curves and greater ampletude, of
larger girth and still more ponder
Gus proportions. When first met by
a Chronicle reporter-now some eight
months ago-Miss Duval weighed
close onto 800 pounds, with every
probability of her reaching the 400
pound standard before the year
closed. Fat-bodied as she was, she
was anything but fat-witted, and,
though she was a burden to herself,
she never repined, except on those
rare occasions when the doubt in
truded itself whether she was bur
den to others. Her obese serenity
was not easily ruffied, and even the
brutal joke made by a coarse friend
of the family, that she should stand
as an advertisement for her fathers
restaurant, did nothing more than
make her smile.
On the 18th of last April there
arrived in San Francisco a cousin of
the Duvals, Victor Cordin by name.
Cordin was q queer, vagabondish |
fellow who had been brought up in
the medical school of Dieppe, who
had served in Algeria as an army
doctor, and who afterward had
wandered away to the center of
Africa. What he had done there
no one exactly knew, but there were
strange stories of his having married
a chiefs daughter, and with her as
partner, of having carried on q most
slave traffic in Guinea.
Finally, so ran the report, he had
disposed of his wife and partner by
selling her at good round price,
and had returned to France a rich
man. With his restlessness I'M
satisfied he had once more left his
native country, and was, when he
reached San Francisco, on his way
to Borneo, with no good object in
view, one may be sure. He was
remarkable looking man when the
writer met him at the Duvals' one
GNCnIu2 SOOn dlOCI LIS all lfdls-
Standing only about five feet two
inches in height, but with the chest
and shoulders of gladiator, having
a long bald head, pointed beard,
twisted mustache, a solitary eye
that cleaned in its socket like fire
in cave, a face burned almost
black from long exposure to tropi-
cal sun, with a tatooed chain about
his neck and strange characters
pricked heavily into the backs of
his hands-make mental picture
of these characteristics and add to
them rumbling bass voice and a
brusque, almost fierce, manner Of
address, and you will perhaps form
an idea of DIR. Victor Cordin. Be
ing in San Francisco he might
naturally have been expected to
have soon sought-out his cousins,
the Duvals; but no, he gave no sign
Of his presence, and it was not until