The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-03-14
A CALAMITY MAN.
A Coming Curiosity Of Dime Museum Cir
cles-How Freaks Are Made.

coming Curiosity Of Dime museum Cir
cles-How Freaks Are Made.
Pittsburg Dispatch.
'"fhe tricks of the trader Ny boy there are
none Everything you see in museum Is
solid reality-a living, breathing reality. You
don't believe it, Ell! / don't blame you. l
wouldn't myself if / were in your place
But you are out of the profession, amt you'
You should be able to give an interesting talk on
the peculiarities of the professionT
II don't mind telling this much. In two or
three months there will flash up one OF the
biggest freak attractions out Next to my drop
L consider this freak the greatest triumph Of nay
life l take good deal of pride in the attrac
ton, for invented him myself. Unfortunately
for me, | couldn't patent him without giving the
snap away, and now he has gone dead back or
me and signed with another man. l am enor
mously and monumentally left. Twas always
thus with inventors unused Mr.. Mortimer In a
grief stricken tone, as he knocked the ashes from
his cigar with his little finger. a slight reminder
that time was heeting called him from his cave
Of gloom and lie went on.
He has played it in such n low-down
way that am willing to expose him before
hand. lie will be known as Jonah, the Casa'n-
ity Man" and win be startler. He has fair
hair and blue eyes, being Swede sailor, whom
l picked up in Clark street boarding house.
The freakish pecularities consist of strange
body marks, which will strike terror to the
hearts of the superstitious, and will knock out
the tattooed men, who are now too numerous to
said, is very white but on his breast and arms
will be skull as big as an orange, the word
war aud the figures 1897 Traced in smaller
characters his side Famine and
the picture of d knife sticking into bleeding
heard. The color of the marks will be rich
brown, and suppose testimonials will be pro
cured from the first scientists and doctors or the
country to the effect that the discolorations are
not productivity tattooing or any foreign colorlng
matter, all Of which will be strictly true
do
grating Yes, skin grating. About four or
five months ago | was reading little newspaper
article about skin grating. which had been sue
cessfully practced on large scale by an emi-
nent New York surgeon, when the idea
struck me and / Immediately took steps
to carry it out | took in my conf
dence a senior in the Hahncmann Medical
College, who was glad enough to try his hand at
five year contract with the Swede with the
privilege of extending it to fifteen. Then we
hunted up two or three negroes OF low order
of intelligence who would stand having their
hide Scissored off for a small amount of cash.
We pat the Swede sailor under the influence of
chloroform, scraped small place on bis skin
down to the quick, when we fastened on the
dusky hide with little pair of p;ncers, and then
using pair of surgeons scissors SHIPPED of
piece, somewhere between the size of a pinhead
and that of a small pea which was plastered OH
the raw place By working on three four
spots at time, we hoped to get through and
have our freak all healed up IN SIX months as he
was healthy and had pure blood
did the colored gentlemen kick2 Well |
should say they did When we drew the shears
on them you ought to have seen them make for
the door, which, by the way, they invariably
found locked. Sometimes their peadings and
roars were loud enough to crack the plaster, but
three fingers of Biler avenue alkali gave them
little backbone and loaded tumbler on the table,
to oe taken as an antidote after the operation,
usually brought them around. When they had
aAaA IA +EnTu 1fynlA =
enough to get them again, for their part Of the
operation was not as painful as it at first APP
peared.
After my Swede had suffered awhile he
thought he was not getting pay enough and
struck have always thought that the man
ager who has him now in training had some
thing 10 do with furnishing him that idea and
engineering the strike, though | don't know
how he could have got on so cleverly Perhaps
some of the negroes were brighter than sup
posed them to be- We made q mistake in not
hlriT.G one negro only whom we night trust
expect that the calamity man will draw heavily
as freak like that appeals to the superstition of
the credulous, unless the managers tell a too
rankly improbable story about him.
'"The old favorites are playing out, and some
thing new must be introduced, or the museum
business will be crowded to the wall by the Kinks
and cheap theatrical performances There was
a time when every museum had its Circassian
beauty but now she is the most innocent and
palpable of ancient and venerable theatrical
chestnuts Her presence now is an almost uni
versal forerunuer of managerial bankruptcy.
Everyone knows she is graduate from the din
ing-roon of some third or fourth-class hashery,
and that she smiles OIL prince and pauper alike
from her dais for the murifcent sum of $4 per
week, with the privilege OF selling her photo
graphs, all of which scarcely pays for the wear
and tear on her curl papers. She has left
the frst-class SHOW forever, though
some managers try to- keep her
before the public by calling her the
moss haired lady" or the electric haired
woman" The wild man is another superannu-
ated freak, and wild men have hard work finding
engagements at $40 per week, though much more
talent is required to do the wild mans business
than one would suppose.
"A common trick is to bill mulatto as an
Aztec, or something else that no one knows any
thing about. One with a receding forehead and
protruding jaw is procured his head shaved ex-
cept on the bump of self-esteem, where big
tuft of wool is left, giving him idiotic appear
ance. His eye-teeth are extracted and alligator's
or sharks teeth substituted, which, protruding
the under lip, add vicious cast to the general
look of imbecity. Mdgets, giants, skeletons and
fat people will always be popular, for they are
straight, but they need something like my Ca
lamity Man to tone up the business