It may be remarked that perhaps certain women are predisposed to give birth to dwarfs. Borwilaski had a brother and a sister who were dwarfs. In the middle of the seventeenth century a woman brought forth four dwarfs, and in the eighteenth century a dwarf named Hopkins had a sister as small as he was. Therese Souvray, the dwarf fiancee of Bebe, had a dwarf sister 41 inches high.
Virey has examined a German dwarf of eight who was only 18 inches tall, i.e., about the length of a newly-born infant. The parents were of ordinary size, but had another child who was also a dwarf.
There are two species of dwarfs, the first coming into the world under normal conditions, but who in their infancy become afflicted with a sudden arrest of development provoked by some malady; the second are born very small, develop little, and are really dwarfs from their birth; as a rule they are well conformed, robust, and intelligent. These two species can be distinguished by an important characteristic. The rachitic dwarfs of the first class are incapable of perpetuating their species, while those of the second category have proved more than once their virility. A certain number of dwarfs have married with women of normal height and have had several children, though this is not, it is true, an indisputable proof of their generative faculties; but we have instances in which dwarfs have married dwarfs and had a family sometimes quite numerous. Robert Skinner (25 inches) and Judith (26 inches), his wife, had 14 infants, well formed, robust, and of normal height.
Celebrated Dwarfs.--Instances of some of the most celebrated dwarfs will be cited with a short descriptive mention of points of interest in their lives:--Vladislas Cubitas, who was King of Poland in 1305, was a dwarf, and was noted for his intelligence, courage, and as a good soldier. Geoffrey Hudson, the most celebrated English dwarf, was born at Oakham in England in 1619. At the age of eight, when not much over a foot high, he was presented to Henriette Marie, wife of Charles I, in a pie; he afterward became her favorite. Until he was thirty he was said to be not more than 18 inches high, when he suddenly increased to about 45 inches. In his youth he fought several duels, one with a turkey cock, which is celebrated in the verse of Davenant. He became a popular and graceful courtier, and proved his bravery and allegiance to his sovereign by assuming command of a royalist company and doing good service therein. Both in moral and physical capacities he showed his superiority. At one time he was sent to France to secure a midwife for the Queen, who was a Frenchwoman. He afterward challenged a gentleman by the name of Croft to fight a duel, and would accept only deadly weapons; he shot his adversary in the chest; the quarrel grew out of his resentment of ridicule of his diminutive size. He was accused of participation in the Papist Plot and imprisoned by his political enemies in the Gate House at Westminster, where he died in 1682 at the advanced age of sixty-three. In Scott's "Peveril of the Peak" Hudson figures prominently. This author seemed fond of dwarfs.
About the same epoch Charles I had a page in his court named Richard Gibson, who was remarkable for his diminutive size and his ability as a miniature painter. This little artist espoused another of his class, Anne Shepherd, a dwarf of Queen Henriette Marie, about his size (45 inches). Mistress Gibson bore nine children, five of whom arrived at ***** age and were of ordinary proportions. She died at the age of eighty; her husband afterward became the drawing master of Princesses Mary and Anne, daughters of James II; he died July 23, 1690, aged seventy-five years.
In 1730 there was born of poor fisher parents at Jelst a child named Wybrand Lokes. He became a very skilful jeweler, and though he was of diminutive stature he married a woman of medium height, by whom he had several children. He was one of the smallest men ever exhibited, measuring but 25 1/2 inches in height. To support his family better, he abandoned his trade and with great success exhibited himself throughout Holland and England. After having amassed a great fortune he returned to his country, where he died in 1800, aged seventy. He was very intelligent, and proved his power of paternity, especially by one son, who at twenty-three was 5 feet 3 inches tall, and robust.
Another celebrated dwarf was Nicolas Ferry, otherwise known as Bebe. He was born at Plaine in the Vosges in 1741; he was but 22cm. (8 1/2 inches) long, weighed 14 ounces at birth, and was carried on a plate to the church for baptism. At five Bebe was presented to King Stanislas of Poland. At fifteen he measured 29inches. He was of good constitution, but was almost an idiot; for example, he did not recognize his mother after fifteen days'
separation. He was quite lax in his morals, and exhibited no evidences of good nature except his lively attachment for his royal master, who was himself a detestable character. He died at twenty-two in a very decrepit condition, and his skeleton is preserved in the Museum of Natural History in Paris. Shortly before his death Bebe became engaged to a female dwarf named Therese Souvray, who at one time was exhibited in Paris at the Theatre Conti, together with an older sister. Therese lived to be seventy-three, and both she and her sister measured only 30inches in height. She died in 1819.
Aldrovandus gives a picture of a famous dwarf of the Duc de Crequi who was only 30 inches tall, though perfectly formed; he also speaks of some dwarfs who were not over 2 feet high.