Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 May 1875 — Giants and Dwarfs. [ARTICLE]

Giants and Dwarfs.

paragraph is going the rounds of the daily press, rehearsing the names of many eminent .men who have shown extraordinary energy in war and politics as being short rather than tall, which has suggested the subject of this brief sketch. Napoleon was quite short, only about five feet four inches: Nelson was very small, and Wellington hardly five feet eight inches in height. Peter.the Great was quite a short man; Louis the Fourteenth was- a pigmy in body, always dressing to appear taller than he really was; William the 'r Third was also far below the ordinary size; while liis opponent, Luxemburg, was a dwarf. r —* — In ancient records wc read of somefamous though diminutive people, among the extreme of whom was Philetas, the poet' contemporary with Hippocrates, and who was obliged to ballast himself to avoid beingblown away by tlie wind; also of a famous Egyptian dwarf named Calistus, who at the age of twenty-five did not weigh more than a fat partridge; and lastly df anotlier poet, Aristr’atus, of whom it was said that his stature was so small no one could see him! In more modern times there was Sir Geoffrey Hudson, who at the age of thirty was hut eighteen inches high. Count Joseph Borowlaski at twenty years of age measured two feet four inches, though at thirty years he frew to three feet three inches. Nicholas 'erry was another celebrated dwarf, weighing less than one pound when horn, hut at twenty years had grown to the height of twenty-two inches, and died at twenty-three years. Prince Colobri, a Slesvig dwarf, was under twenty-six inches. There is a Dutch “ Tom Thumb” now living about the same height. Giants are rarer occurrences than dwarfs, and statistics show that they are not so long-lived. Bryne, a famous Irish giant who died in London some years since, measured eight feet two inches. Cornelius Magrath, also well known in England, measured seven feet eight inches. Edward Malone, another Irishman, was seven feet seven inches, the same stature as Daniel Cardamus, a Swedish giant. A skeleton dug up in a Roman camp at St. Albans, England, was eight feet four inches, and must have been more in life. Goliatli Gath, according to Biblical writers, measured eleven feet in lieiglit, and Maximinius, tlie Emperor, was fully nine feet in height. There has within a few years been exhibited in this city a Prussian who measured over eight feet, and who seemed like a' church-steeple at the side of Tom Thumb and Commodore Nutt, with whomhe generally appeared.— JV. Y. Weekly.