The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-05-14
GIANTS.

AANAGAtb anu hiNNRNli I llllN0'
 If there Is one thing in the show business which can be depended on to draw" it is a giant, provided always that he be big enough, Strong men, contortionists, gymanasts, and trick birds or pigs may endure for a day but freaks, particularly big freaks, will endure for ever; for, as Trnculo very justly remarks of the public when they will not give a doit to relieve a blind beggar, they will lay out ten to see dead Indian" That this is true, says the London Standard, may be seen by the way of the public flocked to see his predecessor Winkelmeyer, and by the way they have almost without ex- ception, gone in crowds to see the latest giant out, ever since a genius conceived the idea of exhibiting for filthy lucre abnormally developed specimens of the genus homo. But giants existed profitable business was invented, and the names of many of them have been handed down to posterity, simply be- cause they were of huge proportions, and combined with their abnormal de- velopment a proportional amount of strength. Thus, it is probable that, had Goliath of Gath, whose height theologians place at over ten feet, not been the strongest as well as the biggest warrior among the Philistines we should never have heard of him. The same argument applies to Moab, King of the Amorites and Og, King of Bash an. Orestes, too, was eleven and half feet high, according to the Grecian legends, and he, together with Ajax the Greater, had they not been gifted with strength in proportion to their bulk would have been only ordinary soldiers of the Grecian army before Troy.
 When history begins, however, that is, when Rome began to reach its high est point of civilization in the time of Augustus, and learned men began to write about the times they lived In, in- stead of the times that went by long before they were born, we get authen- tic record of giants. In Augustuss time, for instances, there were, accord ing to the authority of Valerius, two giants in Rome who were over ten feet | high. Their names were Idusis and | Secundilla, and they were keepers of the gates of the gardens of Sallust | Then again we have a record in Pliny | of one Polydamus, the son of Meas, who was over nine feet high, and whose strength rivalled that of Hercules him | self. Polydamus used in fact to boast | his superiority to that Roman deity, l and perform his special tricks. For example he once slew Hon with a blow of his fist, and scattered its brains about the arena. He could with his | hand stop the swiftest chariot dead and on one occasion seized a bull by the l hoof in order to carry 1t away, but the animal struggled so violently that the | hoof was left in his hand. In the end he was killed by the falling in of a | cave. When his companions that the roof was falling they left. but Poly damus was so vain about his strength that he thought he could not be killed, So he stayed and was finally crushed to death.
 The Emperor Vitellius sent to Darius, | by way of present. Jew named | EleaZer, who was seven cublts high, that is reckoning the cubit at eighteen | inches, ten feet six inches; and giant who Is mentioned by the historian 1 Iacitus was over nine feet His name was Corbulo, and he lived In Nero time, and was more than usually skilful general and soldier, besides being enormously strong man. An ac- count of the ancient giant would be l s,,n 1-4a
 minus, the imperial giant of the third century. The most extraordinary stories are told of this Emperor of Rome. His height was eight feet ten inches, he could draw unaided load ed wagon which six oxen could not move, and could with kick break a horses leg, while his appetite was so great that his usual rations for the day consisted of forty pounds of meat and a whole amphora of wine besides bread and dried and fresh fruits.
 Medieval giants are plentiful, but
 strange to say, the records of them are not so authentic as those of the times of the emperors. Funnian, a Scottish giant, who flourished in S27, seems to be the most authentic of these but as he is put down as being over eleven feet high, the statement should not be criticised too closely. Still more start ling however, is the following, which is vouched for by a monastery full of monks: In 1909 some workmen, dig ging near Rouen, came across cave in
 which were some human bones and a copper plate, bearing the words, Here lie the remains of the great and mighty
 Chevalier Ricon de Vallemont" The skulls were large enough to have held bushel of wheat and the shin bone was over four feet long. Ii (the bone)
 was preserved by the above mentioned
 monks, and it was estimated that the
 height of the defunct knight must have
 exceeded eighteen feet A stranger though somewhat similar legend comes
 from Ireland, but in this case the dis.
 coverers thought that they would, tc
 use an expression popular twenty 0,
 thirty years ago. go "the whole hog
 or none" It happened in 1908. Somt
 men were digging in Ireland when they