Jasper County Democrat, Volume 7, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 January 1905 — Little Marta Edgeworth. [ARTICLE]

Little Marta Edgeworth.

Backboards, iron collars and dumbbells were the ordinary calisthenic appurtenances in boarding schools for young ladies in 1770, about the time when Maria Edgeworth was a schoolgirl. In a biography of the first great Irish novelist Hon. Emily Lawless says that these devices were not deemed sufficient in Maria’s case. For her special benefit one more had to be add-* ed, one which even the judicious family biographer seems to have regarded as rather severe. When she was fourteen years old her shortness was observed with no little disapproval by the members of her family. The Edgeworths had always been a well grown pace, and her lack both of height and of good looks was a blot on the reputhe family. To obviate one of ffer deficiencies not only were all the usual exercises resorted to, but also one which Mrs. Edgeworth herself characterized as “unusual”— that, namely, of “being swung by the neck to draw out the muscles and so increase the growth." Unfortunately it was of no avail. .Short she was and abort she was destined to be.— Youth's Companion.