Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 December 1874 — Rejected Curiosities. [ARTICLE]

Rejected Curiosities.

The International Exhibition at South Kensington has this year produced very little effect upon the public mind. The novelty of such exhibitions is gone, and the panderers to the public taste for something new have introduced catshoes, donkey-shoes, and even exhibitions of bar-maids. King Koffee’s umbrella, exhiDited at the South Kensington Mu-, seum, has received the palm in popular estimation, partly because of its cumbrous, unscientific formation, but more probably on account of the novelty, and of the parade made about it in the newspapers as the greatest trophy of the Ashantee war. It has, however, been suggested that the eccentric exhibitors whose articles were rejected in the great International Exhibition of 1862 should now have an opportunity of showing to the world the Wonders of their imagination or the peculiarities of their mind; and though with no desire to further this object we give a few of the proposed contributions rejected by the commissioners of the 1862 exhibition: A lady sent a stuffed cat which she said lived to be fourteen years of age, and was known to have killed during his life 3,270 rats. It followed its mistress for miles, and would seize a rabbit now and then and place it at her feet. A man dating from Willenhall, Staffordshire, whose name we withhold, wrote as follows: “Oi don’t no if hanemals is to be showd but if they be, oi got a dog, a bull dog, has ansom has paant and he wul kill rots again ony hanimal the furrinners can bring—and there be chaps here has will fund money to back em—All oi want his a cnance at thim furrinners if they be goin to bring dogs oi must bring em rnysel and if you be ready oi am—he has kilt sixty rots in twenty mtouts and that as moor on ony furrinner can do —you be save on backing a me—send enuff munny to pay me railwa and oi will be wi you.” A number of hideous stuffed monstrosities were sent —cats with three heads, dogs with six legs, half-dogs, half cat, calves with six eyes, four eyes, and numerous other lusus naturae; but the office of the exhibition had not been open many months when an American gentleman called to make a proposition of a still more “advanced” description.’ He was the fortunate possessor of the embalmed body of Julia Pastrana—a poor creature, half-baboon, half-woman —who created a sensation in England a few years before; and he thought that arrangements might be made with the Commissioners to show this dead wonder at 6d. a head. He seemed much astounded when his offer was refused. A lady wrote to say that she could procure the identical shirt that Charles I. was executed in. It was composed of the/finest possible cambric, most elaborately worked, and had been handed down to her from early ancestors; but unfortunately it was then in the hands of the pawnbroker, who had advanced ten pounds upon it. If she could receive this sum and a further amount sufficient to buy a glass case for it this would prove one of the greatest attractions in the exhibition and show how superior was the needlework of that age to any produced at the present time. Another lady sent a large sheet of card-board, on which only black marks were visible, without any outline that could be understood. She wrote: “ This, gentlemen, is done with charcoal—charcoal. no drawing-pencil, simply charred wood. I want it exhibited to show to the world that woman’s mind is superior to circumstahces, and that I, a woman without means, am superior to Michael Angelo." The Commissioners sent it back with the curt remark: “With thanks, but no space.” A man who was evidently ahead of the time—for no one had then talked about cremation —wished to exhibit an apparatus by which 100 pounds of animal matter could be reduced to dust by six pounds of charcoal in a few hours without causing an offensive smell. “This,” he said, labeling a small packet containing a few ounces of dust, “is all that remains of a largerdog.” The Commissioners were at a loss to see the utility of his invention at that period, and, therefore, refused to allow him space. The smallest contribution which was declined was a penny loaf of the year 1801. The applicant for space to exhibit this loaf of bread said that he believed it to be the oldest piece of bread in the world.. It was purchased by the applicant’s father sixty years before, when wheat was selling at one guinea a ; bushel; and for the purpose of preserving as a specimen of very dear bread a j string net wap made, in which it had been incased ever since. A thoughtful friend of the Commissioners sent a number of small physic powders all the way from Baden-Baden. | They were carefully directed, as rhedi- | cine packets usually are, and were in- | tended to repair the exhausted eonstitu- ! tions of the overworked officials. [ A Norwegian sent a chart of the earth j to prove that it was not round, but fiat; and asked that space might be given him to lecture in, when he would show how blind all the learned men had been on this subject, and would teach the rising generation truths that it would be worthy of the exhibition to unfold. One persdn, on the other liana, asked that space should be given him to suspend a pendulum by a link 120 feet long,

and the said pendulum would show the earth’s diurnal movement. This was to some extent carried out at the Paris International Exhibition, where a pendulum weighing upward of a ton was suspended by a thick wire, with numerous swivel^ upon it; underneath, the hours for day'and night were marked, and the pendulum being set going when the sun was at his meridian it marked the time accurately, apparently changing its motion, but in reality continuing its action from north to south by means of the swivels; the presumption being that the surface had changed its position, showing the earth’s rotation. One gentleman, a Frenchman, of a poetic turn of mind, wished to pht the whole official catalogue into flowing verse and to work up all the minutes, documents, and decisions of the Commissioners into an epic poem. Of the thousands of applicants for space some professed to produce glass eyes so true' to nature that none could believe them to be artificial; others asserted that they could produce wigs superior to the natural hair, and that whiskers and mustaches could be so fixed upon the face as to give a hirsute appearance to the most barefaced individuals. There were coffins of the most indel structible character; and specimens were absolutely sent of embalmed bodies, to prove how mortal flesh can be preserved from decay. Lastly, there was an applicant for space who had the elixir of life and only wanted an opportunity of some one dying suddenly within the Exhibition building to prove the miraculous power of his mixture. As to persons who had found out the science of perpetual motion, there were at least a score; and of men who were prepared to invent a system of flying through the air, almost as many. One' gentleman was so enthusiastic on this subject that he wished to exhibit an aerial machine in action under one of the great domes, where he thought he could spring up and down like an acrobat in a gigantic baby-jumper. When his offer was politely declined he as politely thanked the Commissioners, feeling that their object in refusing him • permission to exhibit was only to save him from making a great personal sacrifice in preparing his machine. We could give other instances of would-be exhibitors, but have said sufficient to prove that it would not be difficult to get up an exhibition of their inventions all to themselves.— Chambers' Journal.