Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1886-12-18
A LAND OF DwARrs AND GRIZZLIES

Miserable Specimens Of Humanity sthat
are Seen in Lombxrdy rs
promised in q former contribution to
say something about the extraordinary
number of physical monstrosities one
sees throughout the length and breadth
of the province of Lombardy, writes a
Milan correspondent to the San Francis
co Chronicle. Men here, as q rule, are
rather low statured. They are, neverthe-
less, strong and wiry, although the
amount of food they individually "put
away is very small and of inferior quail
ity. Sinewy and brawny- limbed giante
like Artevolo and Cabocho, the peasant
born cavaliers of the middle ages, seem
as utterly extinct as the race Ct Irish
wolt-dogs. It is, for instance, rare
sight to see in Milan an individual over
six feet in height, while dwsrfs waddls
up against you at every street corner.
Every where your eye falls on cripples,
hunchbacks, and otherwise deformed un-
fortunates of both sexes-the percen-
tsge of such folks being enormously
large from one end of Lombardy to the
other. After having made very minute
inquiry into the cause of this anomaly,
am in position to inform you that it is
the result of marriage in the forbidden
degrees of kinship. Lombardians are
very clannish in their customs. First
cousins wed first cousins and uncles and
nleces, unable to get their union sufi.
GENTLY sanctioned, frequently cohsbit
the result being that the children born Of
such parents, are, in some way or anoth.
or, miserable deformities cripples, dwarfE
and hunchbacks, or idiots and lunatics
Gentlemen having the welfare of theil
country at heart have done and are doing
their best t. CON bat the evil, but I an
sorry to say they have signally failed ir
their efforts.
This mortal and material nuisance il
furthermore aggr. waited by the fact thai
these deformities themselves intermarry
aud in the major ty of cases beget mon
sters like themselves. ! know that male
and female cripples who are professional
beggars make some money on the high
roads of Italy by exhibiting as their own
we'll proportional children to the tourists
gaze; but most of these medicants ale
rank imposters. Girls of stately stature
and symmetrical build never sspouse
dwarfs, although female dwarfs OF
hunchbacks. provided with a fair amount
of hard cash, can find little difficulty ir
securing good sized pauper for hus'
band any day in the 365. OF the two
sexes, therefore, the male cripple dwarf
or hunchback is the most unfortunate.
He may belong to very honorable fam.
lily and have thousands of francs to his
credit in bank, but neither his gold mol
responsibility will induce any buxom
r. aid or widow to share her lot with his.
Daffled in his effort to get decent
looking wife, he usually weds diminu-
tive monstrosity like himself, and be-
comes in due course of time tie father OF
very interesting family. And so the
race degenerates. And so the children
of Hercules, by a gradual weakening
and wasting of blood, become so many
grinding Lilliputians-sad and woe-be-
gone spectacles alike for gods and men.
It is the old story once more of the
painting spoken Of by Horace in his
-pistle to the Pisos. The head is a
head of Venus, but the tail is that Of q
fsh