Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 May 1889 — A GREAT PARIR OF FEET. [ARTICLE]

A GREAT PARIR OF FEET.

Fanuie Mills Has Tnem at an Eighth venae Maseun. N. Y. Sun. Fannie Mills has broughtrber feet to town, and there by filled with envy and jealousy the souls of the other breaks in Dpria’s big musmm in Eighth a venae. To look at them one would suppose that the bringing of those feet to town would be a difficult job, but Miss Mills has: carried them all over the country, and gets along very easily with they, she says. Miss Mills went on for the first time at Doris’s ‘yesterday, and there, was no show for any other freaks in the same museum With Fannie’s feet. r The feet, separated from ttie woman, would look like two big, long pincushions stuffed roughly with- rags. They are great, irregular shaped bundles, 28 inches long and 32 inches around at the ball of the foot, dime museum measurement. With an ordinary tape measure they are 18 inches long tod 22 inches around, but to look at iheth no one would think that the museum measurement. was much of an exaggeration. But irffie feet alone funk big, seen with the ..-woman they are simply enormous. Miss Mills is a slight, deiicau; looking woman, of lees than medium height. Seeing her sitting upon her platform yesterday, with all the* audience crowding about, one would have said that having big feet didn’t agree with her. The air of settled melancholy about her eyes was so profound that even the regulation heartbroken dime-museum smile that all freaks wear -could not make her .mpurnfulneoa any- more —impreweiver But there really is a pleasing glow in her eyes When she gets entirely interested in conversation to forget that she is a freak and emiles as other folks smile. - i " When on exhibition she wears one shoe off and one shoe on. ft takes a whole calfshin to make her a pair of shoes, besides leather for the soles and heels, bhe wears u low, flat heel. If she set out to wea r a Louis Quine, the heel would have to be ten inches high to be in proportion. The foot from which the shoe is removed is ciothed in a red jersey made to order. It is as big as a child’s jersey waist, and very shapeless. At one side slit several inches long is cut into the jersey, and the gap thus made exposes a large section of the flesh of the foot and proves that there is no deception about the big bundles reposing on the floor before the little woman.

Miss Mills talks easily and rather proudly of her feet. They have always been that way, she says, ever since she was born, oh a farm near Sandusky, Ohio. She only began to show them ofl for money a few years ago, although she looks now td be 35 years old. Before that time she did housework for her folks, and kept her ieet to herself and the immediate neighbors. As her training in carrying her immense feet about with her began in infancy, she has never experienced any trouble in walking, although, of course, she cannot get along very fast, and has to be careful to keep her feet irom knocking together at every step. Her ankles are not abnormally large, but she is very thin, and there is a drawn look about h( r sallow face, as if all the physical energy in her was being pulled down into those enormous feet. She spends months ot every year in showing off her feet. The rest of, the time she puts in doing housework, as of yore, for the folks at home. She is especially proud of her cooking. Her father, a big, handsome farmer, travels with her and hangs about the platform. Miss Mills says thst she had a busband once, but that he is dead and she doesn’t want another. Her father’s standing offer of $5,000 and a 160-acre farm to any one who will marry her is still open, however, and applications for the farm are coming in all the time by letter. Moßt of them are from men who have never seen the feet.

Couldn’t. Squeeze His Girl. New Yo k dispatch, April 30. There was considerable delay iu start ing the procession from Wall street today, which was explained when exPreeident Hays and Chauncey M. Depew appeared and took seats in the carriage reserved for them. Aftet reaching the Equitable building, Mr. Depew told the story of the failure of himself and Mr. Haves to reach the dock on time, in his own inimitable way. Said he: “Mr. Haves and I were landed at an adjoining slip from the boat whence we had viewed the naval parade. One member of the committee was with ns, but no policeman had been provided to secure passage jmdwe emild make no head way. We were cou fronted by a solid wall of brawny long-shoremen and all our pushing and elbowing was in vain v Finally I appealed to one great big fellow upon whose arm hung his beet girl, and whom Mr. Hays had been vainly endeavoring to budge. ’My good man,’ said I, ‘won’t you let ns pass? This is Mr, Hayes, an ex-President of the United States, and wo nfftißl: get places in the procession before it can start and yon be able to see what brought you here.’ But it was useless. With a grunt and a shove,- the fellpw responded: ‘I don't guvea dom if he’s the President of Heaven, ha shan’t sqneeiemygW.’” S , P. T. Barnum has given SII,OOO to the Universalist Church, of Bridgeport, Conn., thus freeing U from debt.