Physiologists have discussed the question
whether there are any causes in operation likely
to produce a race of dwarfs, such as the
pigmies believed in by the Greeks, and such as
those little people whom travellers once asserted
to be living in Abyssinia. Physiologists have
arrived at a few general conclusions as to persons a
little above or a little below the middle height;*
but they disbelieve in any race exceedingly tall
or exceedingly short. All the examples well
authenticated are individual only.

* See TALL PEOPLE, vol. xii., page 489

We find plentiful notices of people less than
four feet high. Even at and below forty inches,
the list is formidable. Fabricius speaks of a
dwarf forty inches high. Thomas Coates, who
died about eighty years ago, was of this
stature. John Coan, the Norfolk dwarf, was
thirty-eight inches. Gaspard Boutin speaks
of one thirty-six inches high; and this was
also the height of John Marshall, known as
"Crutchy Jack," who died at Leeds about half
a century ago, and who was the father of eight
fine children. There was a little man exhibited
in London, in the time of George the Fourth,
whose thirty-six inches of height were cad in
military attire, with top-boots; "he strutted his
tiny legs, and held his head aloft with not less
importance than the proudest general officer could
assume upon his promotion to the rank of field-
marshal." Long before this, there was
exhibited, "opposite the Mews-gate at Charing-
cross, a little black man, being but three foot
high, and thirty-three years of age, straight and
proportionate every way, who is distinguished
by the name of the Black Prince; and with him
his wife, the little woman, not three feet high,
and thirty years of age, straight and proportionate
as any woman in the land, which is commonly
called the Fairy Queen."

Below three feet in height, a dwarf likes to
descend, if he can. This makes him more famous.
Lydia Walpole, a dwarf at Bartholomew Fair
forty years ago, was thirty-five inches high. A
brush-maker of Edinburgh, so short as to be
known as the Town Steeple, married a girl who
was a little shorter than himself: they averaged
thirty-four inches each, and were generally
known as being as broad as they were long.
Eighty years ago, there died Mrs. Kelly, known
as the Irish Fairy; she was thirty-four inches
high, and died in giving birth to a child. But
the best specimen of humanity of this altitude
was, perhaps, Madame Teresa, known as the
Corsican Fairy, who was exhibited in London
some years before the Irish Fairy. She was
an elegant little creature, pretty, womanly
and yet fairy-like; less than a yard in height,
she was still a lady, if her portraits are to be
trusted. In the time of Sir Hans Sloane there
was exhibited, at the Mitre and Rummer at
Charing-cross, "a little wild man, aged twenty-
seven, and thirty-four inches high." And "at a
coffee-house in Charing-cross" (a famous place
for exhibitions was Charing-cross in those days)
"a little man, fifty years old, two feet nine
inches high, and the father of eight children;
when he sleeps he puts his head between his
feet, to rest on by way of a pillow, and his great
toes in each ear, which posture he shows to the
general satisfaction of all the spectators." The
Liège people boast of an old woman, who died
about a century ago, at the age of a hundred,
and with the altitude of thirty-two inches.
Mary Jane, of the same height, died at Wem,
in Shropshire, ninety years ago; but the poor
thing was deformed and lame. An advertisement
of the time of William and Mary tells of
a German woman, "at the brandy-shop, over
against the Eagle and Child, in Stocks' Market"
(where the Mansion-house now stands), "the
dwarf of the world, being but two feet seven
in height, and the mother of two children."
This was also the height of "a man of the least
stature that has been seen in the memory of
man," at the Plume of Feathers in the same
locality. One exhibition was of "a little Scotchman,
but two feet and six inches high, near upon
sixty years old; he sings and dances with his
son; he formerly kept a writing-school, and
discourses of the Scriptures and of many eminent
histories very wisely"—a pedagogue in a
nutshell. The Journal de Médecine notices a man
twenty-eight inches high. Mr. Simon Paap, a
Dutch dwarf, who attracted a good deal of
attention in London fifty years ago, was about as
many inches in height as he was pounds in
weight and years in age—twenty-eight. In
Queen Anne's time there was "a little fairy
woman, come from Italy, being but two feet
two inches high." There is a record of one
Hannah Bounce, who, although only twenty-five
inches high, gave birth to a child.

Of course, if the attraction of a dwarf varies
inversely as his length, he will try to be less
than two feet long if he can; and, equally of
course, the narratives to that effect are all the
more open to suspicion. Demaillet, the French
consul at Cairo, says he saw a dwarf only
eighteen inches high. Birch, in his Collections,
speaks of one, only sixteen inches high, and
thirty-seven years old. M. Virey, in the
Dictionnaire des Sciences, notices a German dwarf
girl eighteen inches high, but then she was only
nine years old. A girl was exhibited at Bartholomew
Fair "not much above eighteen inches
long, having never a perfect bone in any part of
her, only the head; yet she hath all her senses
to admiration, and discourses, reads well, sings,
whistles, and all very pleasant to hear." At
the Charing-cross Coffee-house, corner of Spring-
gardens, early in the last century, was to be
seen "a man, six-and-forty years old, one foot
nine inches high, yet fathoms six foot five inches
with his arms." He must have been an oddity,
seeing that "he walks naturally upon his hands,
raising his body one foot four inches off the
ground; jumps upon a table near three foot
high with one hand."

Many dwarfs have had some degree of historic
celebrity attached to their names, owing to the
circumstances of their career.

Jeffery Hudson, a Rutland man, was one of