Year: 1873

The business of manufacturing dwarf


by mutilating children, unhappily. was al


one time followed as q profession by a body


OF villains who had reduced it to a system


In the preliminary chapters to ''L'Homme


Qui Rit," Victor Hugo gives an account


OF the operations of these persons which


IS full OF painful interest. They called


themselves {" Comprachicos, and they la


bored to supply the demand which existed


a couple of centuries ago, in almost every


European country, for dwarfs and distort-


ed human beings for the royal palaces and


and for the homes of the wealthy nobility.


The king must have his misshapen jester


the fine lady her fantastic page or foot


man; the nobleman his hunchback lack


ey: and even the Sultan his grotesque


buffoon for the sera1lio. The demand was


greater than the supply afforded by the
freaks of nature, and the Comprachicos


undertook to make good the deficiency.


They fabricated monsters upon large
scale. The headquarters Of this infamous
fraternity were in England, but its ranks


were recruited from all countries, and its
operations were extended to other coun-
tries. The organization had its origin, we


believe, in Spain.


The Comprachicos procured children for
their purpose i'm various ways. Some
times there was an heir 10 an estate who


was in the way of somebody, and he would


be sold into the hands of the order to he
mutilated beyond recognition. Sometimes
pauper and orphan children would be dis
posed of by relatives who did not wish to
take care of them; and often, again, when
the raw material was not offered i'm sufii-
cient quantities, the Comprachicos would
kidnap children for their purpose. Once
in their hands, there was no possibility that
a child could be rescued without mutilation.
Taken when very young, they were, as Vic
tor Hugo expresses it, touched up, so that
their parents would not recognize them"
Sometimes the Comprachicos would
operate on the spine in such way that the
child would have bumped back; or they
would leave the dorsal column straight, and
alter the countenance. They would cut
the muscles so that the little one would
wear perpetual and diabolical grin, or
would have its face set permanently in
some fantastic shape. By a peculiar pro-
cess the growth of another would be stunt
ed so that the child would be a dwarf;
while in other cases the joints and muscles
of the limbs would be so treated that they
would acquire unnatural suppleness.
These patients would be sold to showmen,
who trained them as gymnasts. Some
times, also, the throat would be manipu-
lated for the purpose of giving the child
peculiar vocal powers. Charles III. had a
being thus mutilated, whose office it was
to move around the palace at night signal
ing the hours by Growing like a cock. A
certain DR.. Conquest, of London, wrote a
volume upon this kind of surgery, i'm which
he describes the processes as if they had a
rightful place among the practices of
science.


The Comprachicos were suppressed by
statute under William and Mary. Their
are said, however, to exist at
this day in China. The Chinese operators
take child of two or three years old, and
put it in a porcelain vase of some odd
shape. but without lid or bottom, so that
the head and feet are exposed. In the day
time the vase is kept upright; at night, it
is laid upon its side, so that the child may
sleep. Thus the child grows, filling up
the spaces in the vase with its compressed
flesh and twisted bones. This growth in
the bottle lasts for several years. AT a
given period it is without remedy. When
the mold has taken, and the monster is
made, they break the vase, and the child
nrtf of ~ y.