AN EXTRAORDINARY FREAK OF NATURE.

A BOY of the name of JONES, (of whom the above Portrait is a striking likeness, sketched on the spot,) was brought into the Justice Room in the Mansion House, on Monday, December 9th, 1822, on an Officer's back, and placed before Mr. Alderman Cox, as a Vagrant demanding the Magistrate's particular attention.

The Officer stated, that in passing over London Bridge a few evenings since, he saw a great number of persons crowding round some object that seemed to attract intense curiosity. With some difficulty he penetrated the crowd, and saw, on the ground, the most extraordinary creature he ever beheld. Some of the spectators were examining the limbs, or rather fins, which occupied the place of arms; and others were looking at the foot, or rather the hand, at the extremity of the right leg. The other parts of the body, and the head, were those of a human being of the male sex, about 13 years of age. The Boy seemed to be extremely shrewd. By many persons he was looked upon as an object of curiosity; but there were others who pitied and relieved him. The Officer thought it his duty to take this very remarkable vagrant before the Lord Mayor; for if the Boy lay longer on the Bridge, there would be no possibility of passing, so powerful was the attraction.

It was found, when the Boy was brought to the Justice Room, that there were sufficient grounds of excuse for the delay of the crowd upon the Bridge. The right arm represented a small angular bone without a joint, terminating in a point, on which was a finger nail. This arm the Boy applied to various uses, to which a common observer would not think it by any means adapted. The lower part of it he was able to wind about as an elephant winds its proboscis; but he mostly used it in conjunction with the corresponding limb, which was crooked and horribly misshapen. The left arm terminated in two points, like the upper joints of fingers, on each of which there was a nail and with this frightful, and apparently useless appendage, he was able even to thread a needle. But the most useful of all the poor boy's deformities was the right foot, which was in the shape of a hand, and wonderfully calculated to supply the want of those members. When the tear started in his eyes, he raised up this extraordinary substitute for a limb, and wiped them away, and then he scratched his head, and showed as great a command of the leg as those animals do, who become more ugly the nearer they approach in their resemblance to man.

The Boy said he had lately come to town from Liverpool, with his brother, on an ass: that his mother had brought him into the world a short time after having heard of the loss of her husband at sea; and that his deformity was, by the physician, attributed to the fright.

The brother attended in the Justice Room, and stated that a boy had promised to carry the poor cripple on his back, but getting tired he left him on London Bridge; that he never begged, and was never exhibited; and that his mother was very poor.

LONDON :—Printed by and for G. SMEETON, 15, Royal Arcade, Pall Mall.

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