The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1888-06-06
Limbless Workers.

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There is now making the tour of
Europe, exhibiting in the different
towns, limbless man, who does many
things that must be seen to be believed.
He was born without either legs or
arms, and yet he can write letters, cut
paper with scissors, pour water from
bottle into glass, eat with fork and
spoon, take his watch from his pocket,
open it and put it back, thread needle
and fire pistol. His name is Nicolai
Wassilewitch Kobelkoff, and he was
born at Troizk, in Siberia, in 1852,
fourteenth child, all his brothers and
sisters being properly formed. In 1876
he married an Austrian woman, and has
five children, all of whom were fully
developed.
Kobelkoff has the rudiments of legs,
one thigh being six inches longer; but
for right arm he has merely conical
mound and for left arm rounded
bone representing the humerus. And,
with these stumps and their atrophied
muscles, to conduct an entertainment
is not easy. However, the Russian
manages to make himself fairly inter-
esting. He sits at table, fixes pen
DClNCCIl Ilo CllCCh ilu anu WlllCo
away in a good, clear, commercial
hand. And, with the same combina-
ton of cheek and shoulder, he does
most of the other things, the most
seemingly difficult being that of feed
ing himself The way he threads a
needle is to take it in his mouth and
stick it in his jacket, and then, putting
the thread in his mouth, pass it through
the eve. He can draw passably well,
and he draws as he writes. The
strangest thing is to see him load
pistol, aim it at lighted candle and
shoot the light out. He even tries
some acrobatic performances, but these
are not very striking, consisting merely
of jumping off his chair and doing
sort of sack race across the floor.
AT Antwerp, recently, there was an
artist who copied the masterpieces of
Rubens, and yet had no hands. All
his work was done with his toes, and
so we'll did he paint that his pictures
fetched higher price for their artistic
merit than those of any other artist in
the city. On the foot with which he
shook hands he wore black glove.
There are many cases of women sew
ing with their toes, and there is one
remarkable instance of an armless
matchmaker who used to take watches
to pieces and clean them with his toes.
In the London streets, during the last
year or so, man has planted himself
in quiet corners, netting with his toes,
and writing with the toes is an ordin-
airy performance that any one can do
with little practice.
One of the most extraordinary cases
of work done by cripple was, how
ever, that of John Carter, velvet
weaver, who fell from a tree, broke his
neck, and yet survived, paralyzed from
his collar-bone downward. He had no
feeling in his body or limbs, and could
even be pinched or bruised without
knowing anything about it. For fifteen
years he lived in bed, at first reading,
and then painting, holding his brushes
| in his lips. His copy was hung by
tapes from the roof of his bed; and,
after time, he had desk made by a
which his drawing-paper was secured
by pins. 1t stood beside his right
shoulder, about six inches from his face.
The pencil with which he drew the out
line was placed in his mouth, and
Sulueu by MS lips. ne resi- ot lue
work was carried out with very fine
cancels hair brushes, the cheap ones
which may be bought in a country shop.
After years of patient endeavor he
could copy accurately, line for line, the
finest engravings, and these copies
fetch good prices even in America,
where many of them were taken.
Considering that no line once made
could be erased, and that he could not
measure or space out his work, the ac-
curacy which distinguished him is Won
derful. His masterpiece was a copy of
a " Virgin and Child" after Albert
Durer, in which every line is as if
photographed, true in direction, weight
and swell and delicate as silk, particu-
larly in the veil, which loses nothing in
transparency. To draw such lines on
the hard metal is not easy; but to draw
them with brush held in the lips, on
paper resting on little desk in bed, is
enough to make us wonder of what the
human frame is capable, if only di-
rected with perseverance. Surely
the moral is that those who have all
their powers ought not to be discour-
aged by the little obstacles or even the
greater ones which they are sure to
meet.-The Boys OWn Paper