Year: 1875

Writing of the Chinese aud their
ingenuity. the New Orleans Pioayune
says: Che-Fung is q picture of the
more wretehed Chinese. He is fright
ful, disgusting in appearance. Tall for
a Chinaman, being over six feet in
height. he is q thin aud emaciated, a
skeleton scarecrow. His face IS COW
cred with wrinkles, like & school-boy's
atlas; his nose must be taken for
granted, it is a mere suspicion; his
mouth is perfect gulf in itself; his
eyes altogether out of the right posi-
ton and the flesh of his face hangs
down like the hide of a Ihinoceros.
Altogether Che-Fung is q disgusting
sight, looks as if he had been hung and
dried, boiled and smoked, then buried
for month or so. and dug up 20 be
exhibited. Yet Che-Fung is q good
talker in Pigeon English, and IN con-
fidential manner disclosed his whole
history in that language of which,
while making out about one word IN
ten, we got 8 general idea.


4 was circus man in China-Tsien-
Sing, as We call it. We are great Oh
symnastic and legerdemain but par
ticularlv in natural phenomena, human
curiosities, etc. There is a human
monstrOsity mandatory at Tsacping,
where, for a consideration. any of the
human deformities you ouAmericansr regard
as laFsi nature can be made to order
There are many parents who thus sacri-
fee their children to be made monsters
of, aud who live on the gaining by the
exhibition of these monstrosities.


cannot explain how all of these
tricks are done, but that they are done
any Chinaman can testify. A dwarf is
of easy manufacture a regular morn
ing dose of whisky and tea to child
will stunt it-keep il down to its orig
inai size. A monstrOcity, hunchbRck,
is, of course, easy while human beings
can be made of any shape, from a cock
to an elephant, by being moulded in
jar like jelly-stuck into jar of the
desired shape when young, and left
there to develop itself.


g AS for myself, was brought up
fat man.


&c A fat man = we exclaimed invol-
unfairly, looking at Che-FuDg's spare
form. do you manufacture fat people
in China p Z" It is only trick of the
trade. 7 was naturally thin boy, but
old Fee Lee soon brought me out. You
have seen sheep slaughtered here, seen
them skinned. A hole is made in the
outer skin, the epidermis bellows is
inserted and worked. The air finds its
way between the cuticle and cutis, or
skin proper, and sweils out the animal
to double its size, at the Same time that
it almost parates these two skins, so
that the hide of the animal comes of
easily. This is the manner in which 1
was treated. Every morning I was
treated to an air bath and gallon or so
of air injected into nay system, and sooD
began to swell like a balloon"


'ts In month or so / was returned to
my parents fat boy, and fine speci-
men of a fat boy, measuring, although
only fifteen, SO inches around the chest
and 46 round the thigh. Twas advertised
as weighing 600 pounds the trnth was
I weighed only about $50, the 80 being
the weight of 200 gallons of air by
which was puffed out.


'''I don't believe that I altogether
presented very pretty aspect, being
pulled out and lumpy in appearance,
and looking bloated rather than fat.
not detect the impOsture, and I was
exhibited for many years, earning a re-
spectacle livelihood for my parents, who
had brought me up to the profession of
fat msn.


''' The profession was not an agreeable
one. The air made me ever feel sleepy
and sick. It did not, however, make me
lazy it did not impede me as fat would
have done. Those who saw my agility
and gracefulness on the street wondered
how so fat man could lje so lively,
little suspecting that his apparent fat
ness was an assistance, and half carried
me along the street. There were few
young men in China that could beat
the monster of 900 pounds in a foot
race.


&c I came over here and exhibited in
America in San Francico for some time.
One day during a sitting an American
child, with the usual ingenuity and in
vestigating disposition of American
children, crept up behind, and, proba-
bly, impressed with the desire of discov-
ering whether fat man could feel or
not, ran a pin or knife or something
sharp into me while no one was observ
ing him. The result was somewhat of
an explosion; the captive air rushed out
and left me q thin-looking individual
as ] am row. There was not one to
blow me up scientifically and ] there
fore gave up the profession of fat man
for that of washerwomsn. I seldom
feel any evil consequences from my
previous condition, save that my Gu
ticle, or outer skin, is almost separated
from myself, and. like an ill-fitting suit
of clothes, almost drops of, or punches
itself up in a disagreeable manner.
sometimes get cold inside of it, which
is not at all comfortable. Still the
position of washerwoman is much pref
erable to that of a fat man, and I in
tend to stick to It. "