The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1896-03-14
PROGENY AND FREAKS.
SOME RESULTS OF ROMANCES IN
THE SHOW BUSINESS.
The First Real Living Skeleton, His Wife
and Their Three Skin and Bone Sons.
An Old Museum and Side Show
Manager Taps His Memory
Tank.

According to Manager T. Z. Sackett of
the Bijou thcater, Isaac w. Sprague was
he first unnaturally Or abnormally thin
lin and bones man to he exhibited to the
public under the title Of Giving skel-
eton." 1t was during the palmy days of
Barnum's Greatest Show on Earth, and
while that celebrated Snowman was raking
the continents in search of curiostics in
1864. Incidentally Mr. Sackett was in
those days with Tony Pastor. Mr.. Sackett
was acting as door.ender, manager and all
around man for Pastor He had previously
been out with Mile Christine the headed
girl, and had an eye out for freaks When
/ the Tony Pastor show reached Florida,
| Stone n Murny's circus came there. TIL"
old inhabitants will rcmem.'" stone u
| Murray's show. II was cOntemporlEeoUa
with Dan Rice's Thayer 4 Noyes' and
afterward with the John Robinson circus.
| With Stone x Murray was Isaac w.
| Spraguc, the living skeleton Mr.. Sprague
had been discovered by Barnum in Massa-
chusetts. He was the first living skeleton
on record since the discovery Of the world
by Adam. And Sprague was real living
/ skeleton too. He was nothing but skin
and bones, yet he was healthy and jolly.
| In 1860 Barnum collected several curo,i-
| ties, including :'prague, and sent them for
tour OF the wo!ld. Sprague was the biz
card Next 10 him was IA skeleton woman,
nearly is attcnuatcd as Sprague, whose
name has escaped the wonderful memory Of
Snowman Sackctt Amon. the other freaks
with which Balnum expected to and did
astonish the world was .loyce IIeth, the
colored woman he picked up in the south,
supposed to he l25 years old; the "woolly
horse, and Annie Swan, the litst siantrss
ever on exhibition.
| Sprague, on the steamer going over to
London, fell desperately in love with the
skeleton woman. She returned his affec-
ton, and, according to Manager Sackett,
who was on the voyage, it was a sight for
the sentimental to observe the billing and
cooling OF these attenuated specimens Of
Pharaoh's lean hine =
The outre love affair gave Earnum bus
mess hint, which he was not slow to take
advantage Of On their arrival in dear old
"Lunnon' the Snowman advertised and
heralded the astounding fact far and wide
that on a certain day there could he seen at
St. James hall where they were showing
something that the world had never before
witnessed, namely the marriage of two
| living, breathing skeletons He also an
nounced the fact that never before in the
anna > of the show business had such thing
as the wedding of freaks been performed in
public This was a fact too.
OF the enthusiastic crowds which such
unique announcement drew, or the inter
e<ting conduct Of the living skeletons,
welded in the presence of assembled
thousands y Manager Sackett is silent. But
he tells of fact, however, which is of such
interest that it was recorded in medical
works. but never before has seen the light
o! newspaper publication. That was that
Il year after the marriage OF the skeletons
the wife bore a child which also was a
living skeleton"
Stranger still to reate-but Sackett
stakes his fortune on the truth OF 1.-TWO
other children were also born TO Mr.. and
Mrs. Sprague, and they were also of the
skeleton mould. For many years afterward
the parents travelled with their unnaturally
thin offspring, and added to the stock OF
the worlds establishment, including both
crowned heads and those that were bald.
The original Sprague and his wife are dead,
but the three skeleton children, now young
men, are showing about the country,
healthy, happy and rich.
This is the only case or succession Of
cases in medical annals where father and
mother transmitted the disease of wasting
| atrophy to their offspring.
Nh Sackett also tells of another weird
case that came under his observation in his
perigrinating show days Maio Burnell, a
celebrated Snowman Of the sixties, found IA
pair Of freak twins in the south. the Off
spring of colored people. One Of the twins,
boy, was blac!; as kongo stock. The
other, girl, was pure albino. The
major engaged the twins for his show ard
exhibited them for years The albno girl
grew up and married an albino in the
west. The offspring of the marriage was a
baby as black as the ace of spades OF
course this enhanced the showing price of
Charley and his albino wife, and Major
Burnell increased their salaries accord
ingly.
ID. X. Prescott was the dscoverer of the
far famed Sleeping Beauty, whom he
found in Tennessee in the sixties. He
brought her to St. Louis. She was q young
girl of surprising beauty, with but one
fault discoverable. She slept nineteenth
Of the time. She was the greatest puzzle
the medical men had ever seen. 1t was
one Of these latter who deprived her mother
of a fortune and Prescott OF one of his most
popular curiosities. The young doctor was
1