Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1896-02-05

and Thei- Three Skin and Bone Soma
 4, old Museum and Side Show Man.
 acer Tarx His Memory Tank.
 According to Manager T. E. Sackett of inc Bdjou theater. Isaac w. Sprague ,uas the first unnaturally or abnormally thin skin and bones man to be exhibit d to the public under the title of n Giving skeleton. , It was during the nalmy days of Barnum's s Greatest Show a,, Earth and while that celebrated snowman was raking the continents in search of curiosities in 1864. Incident ally MT. Sackett was ill those days with Tony Pastor. MT. Sackett was acting as 3oortender, manager and all around man for Pastor. He had previously been snt with Millie Christine, the two headed girl, and had an eye out for freaks. When the Tony Pastor show reached Florida, Stone & Murray's cir ens came there. The old inhabitants will remember Stone & Murray show II was contemporaneous with Dan Rice's, Thayer & Moves and afterward with the John Robinson circus. With Stone $ Murray was Isaac w. Sprague tho living skeleton. Mir Sprague had been discovered by Barnum in Massa- chusetts. He was the first living skele- ion on record since the discovery of the world by Adam. And Sprague was a real living skeleton too. He was noth- ing but skin and bones, yet he was healthy and jolly.
 
 In 1865 Barnum collected several eu- riosities, including Sprague, and sent them for tour of the world Spragne ;. was the big card. Next to him was a skeleton woman, nearly as attenuated as Sprague, whose name has escaped the wonderful memory of Snowman sackett. Among the other freaks with which Barnum expected to and did as- tonish the world was Joyce Heth, the eolored woman he picked up in the south, supposed to be 125 years old; the s'woolly horse, and Annie Swan, the first giantess ever on exhibition.
 spragae, Oil the steamer going over to London, fell desperately in love with the skeleton womaa.@s4She returned his affection, and, according to Manager Sackett, who was on the voyage, it was a sight for the sentimental to observe the billing and cooing of these attenuat- ed specimens ofsPharaoh' lean Kline. .
 The outre love affair gave Barnum a business hint, which he was not slow to take advantage of. On their arrival ill dear old "Lunnon" the snowman adver- tised and heralded the astounding fact far and wide that on certain day there could be seen at St. James hall (where they were showing something that the world had never before witnessed, name ly, the marriage of two living, breath ing skeletons. He also announced the fact that never before in the annals of k show business had such a thing as the wedding of freaks been performed Ill public. This was fact too.
 Of the enthusiastic crowds which such a unique announcement drew, or the interesting conduct of the living skele- tons, welded in the presence of 'as- sembled thousands. Manager Sackett is silent. But he tells of fact, how ever, which is of such interest that 1t was recorded in medical works, but never before has seen the light of news paper publication. That was that a year after the marriage of the skeletons living skeleton ''
 Stranger still to relate-but Sackett stakes his fortune on the truth off it. two other children were also born to Mr aud Mrs. Sprague, and they were also of the skeleton mold. For many years afterward the parents travelled with their unnaturally thin offspring, and added 10 the stock of the world s astonishment, 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 coun- try, healthy, happy and rich.
 This is the only case or succession of cases in medical annals where father and mother transmitted the disease of ywasting atrophy to their offspring.
 MT Sackett also tells of another weird case that came under his observation ill hls peregrinating show days. Major Burnell, a celebrated snowman of the sixties, found pair of freak twins in the south, the offspring of colored peo- pie One of the twins, boy, was black as kongo stock The other, a girl, was a pure albino. The major engaged the twins for his show and exhibited them for years The albino girl grew up and married an albino ill the west, The offspring Of the marriage was baby as black as the ace of spades. Of course this enhanced tho showing price of Charley and his albino wife, and Major Burnell increased their salaries accord ingly.
 D. K. Prescott was the discoverer of tho far famod Sleeping Beauty, whom \2e found in Tennessee i'll the sixties. lie ss0ught her to St. Louis. She was a young gill of surpassing beauty, With l2ut one fault discoyerable. She slept Vine tenths of tie time. She was the greatest puzzle the medical men haa ever seen. It was one of these latter Who deprived her mother of fortune