Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 November 1879 — An Eccentric Hunchback. [ARTICLE]

An Eccentric Hunchback.

About 1725 one of the most remarkable characters in the public haunts of Paris was a hunched-backed gentleman of the name of Benardot. He was a man of a droll turn of mind; cared nothing for his own deformity of person? and delighted to tease tßose who, equally unfortunate in this respect, were not possessed of the same philosophic indifference. In walking the streets of the boulevards it was his constant practice, when he perceived another hunchback, to step up and whisper in his ear, pointing at the same time to his own protuberance, “If you are conteut, sir, so am I.” The frequent repetition of this salutation soon made him as universally known as hated by all the other hunchbacks of Paris. He was their common pest, and there was not one of them who would not at any time have gone a mile out of his way to avoid the ingenious tormentor.— Journal ,