Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 October 1879 — Mr. and Mrs. Tom Thumb at Home. [ARTICLE]

Mr. and Mrs. Tom Thumb at Home.

The Rev. W. H. Adams, of Massachusetts, has written a letter discribing a visit to the home, near Middleboro, Mass., of the world renowned dwarfs, General and Mrs. Tom Thumb, in whLh he says: “The public are not admitted to their sumptuous home. Only a few favored friends, who its proprietors are con Aden twill appreciate the privilege, are reoeived. 11 is a three story wooden mansion, tastefully painted, with piazzas and bay windows commanding an extensive view of variegated scenery, with dome and spires of Middleboro in the distance, and having the air of luxury. A Scotch maid announced us, who subsequently told one of the ladies that they could not help loving Mr.‘and Mr. Stratton who were always kind and seeking to make them happy, The General gave us a hearty welcome and ushered us into an elegant drawing-room adorned with Italian and Chinese paintings and a portrait of his father, who died some years since at Bridgeport, Conn., where the family still reside. On the ma ble center-table lays a large family Bible alone. Chairs and sofas were all adapted to persons of ordinary size, and nothing in this story of the mansion suggested Its owner’s wee-ness, save in the library, replete With brie-a-brac and articles or virtu re from all the world, souvenirs of travel where a child’s rocking-chair of block walnut received the little Madame, while her

w from a M—nnif apron a hundred years old to an elephant carved from a tuss, but those tusks, alone of the whole animal, were not of ivory, but of brass. To a curiously-carved walking stick surmounted by a long-bearded bead with great glass eyes they have given the name of ‘David’ from a fancied resemblance to the sweet psalfoist of Israel. Mrs. Stratton, pointing to an elegantly carved set of East India chess-man, remarked her fondness for the gams, and (archly and with the General’s goodhumored response) her husband's dislike, because, ‘modestly I say it, I always beat him.’ could well appreciate her assertion ‘that the General and she had always got along well together.’ He is forty yean okl, and four years her senior. He now weighs seventy-five pounds, having weighed fifty pounds at fifteen years of age. ‘But,’ said he, ‘I began life a good big boy ofsix pounds.’ Going upstairs we fefPinclined to be so unmannerly as to take two steps at a time, for the stairs of both flights seemed but four or live inches in height; but we were not so exalted above measure as thus to indicate our own pedal superiority. At the head of the first flight, in the sewing room, stood the diminutive Wheeler and Wilson sewing machjng, a wedding present, fifteen years ago, from that firm, who at their own expense caused this exquisitely pearl inlaid plaything to precede the little travelers in every land they visited around the Slobe. It is a plaything in size alone, Irs. Stratton making it do good service to the present day. In the front entry over the entrance was the General’s grand piano, about two feet high, one of his pastor’s fingers strikiug three of the keys at ouce, aud with difficulty covering only one. It was made in England, and cost SSOO, being inlaid in pearl and richly gilded ami enameled. But the General was 'out of practice;’ indeed, ‘had given up playing altogether.’ “Perhaps our greatest treat was the inspection of their own apartment. Here were the Penates. Admitted iuto the penetralia, we may be permitted to write that here every thing is adapted to themselves alone. Bureau, cabinet, dressing taLlo, # ofa, chairs and bed were all diminutive; the last elaborately carved from ebony, and richly canopied in damask and lace, a gift from bis father.”