Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 June 1892 — INHUMAN OCCUPATION. [ARTICLE]

INHUMAN OCCUPATION.

Children Crippled and Hired to “Beggar Farmers.’’ The Foire au Pain d’Epice, or gingerbread fair, which is held every spring, in the Fauborg St. Antoine and the Place de la Nation, Paris, and which is notorious for tho number of natural and artificial phenomena exhibited in its gaudily draped booths, was this year much enhanced by the appearance before the publio of twenty to thirty culs-ae-jatte, whose aspect was so wretched and pitiful that they reaped a truly golden harvest. These unfortunate cripples whose shrivelled legs ate curled up oa the boards on which they sit, and who go about propelling themselves by -the aid of their hands, remind one of the horrors which used to be seen in the Cour des Miracles of bygone years. In Spain, and more especially in the neighborhood of Tolosa there are a number of inhuman monsters called “beggar-farmers” whose noble and philanthropic avocation it is to manufacture the cul-de-jatte who are met so frequently in France, Italy, and even Belgium. Whenever there is a weakly boy or girl born in the families of the peasants in the above mentioned districts the “begger-farmer" persuades the parents to hire the infant to him at so much per diem. When once they have obtained the child they begin the heartless and cruel operations which end iu making a cul-de-jatte of the little creature thus confided to their care. The weak, pliable legs of the “subject” are tightly compressed and twisted with unyielding bandages which so effectually prevent the circulation of the blood that little by little the lower limbs wither away, and become curled and useless in orthodox cul-de-jatte fashion. In 1887 M. Wnldeck-Rousseau, then Minister of the Interior, prohibited the introduction of these Spanish monstrosities into France, but his decree soon became a dead-letter and this year more than 400 of these miserable cripples have crossed the frontier. The “beggarfarmers” pay the parents or relatives of the poor wretohes, ten to twenty cents a day for their hire. Twenty cents, however, is only paid—being a large sum in those districts—when the cul-de-jatte’s personal attractions are augmented by some other infirmity such as blindness, a missing arm, or some very apparent and hideous skin disease. The mouths of the “traders in human miseery” positively water when they encounter so favorable a specimen; for they are f ully aware that he can be turned into a perfect mine of profit if properly managed, and they pounce upon their victims with an ardor worthy of a better cause. —[New York Tribune.