freaks!!!

[mr. piper]

This is an awful subject, but i have read that in victorian england, nasty people made a trade by selling "freaks" to circuses. Only trouble was these freaks often came about by buying babies from the poor, breaking their arms and legs and locking them in a box only big enough for their body and leaving them in for years until they grew up twisted permanantly. This is not nice, i would love to know it is a lie but i fear not. has anyone else heard of it? There is a name for them.

[Loosehead]

I have read this in a book called "The worlds most fantasic freaks". What's more poor families did it to there own children, awful stuff. No idea if there is any truth in it but at the time people with deformities could make money as curiosities.

[Lindylou]

What about the 'rat' children of India - horrendous!  And apparently its still going on today.

[commoner]

..mm I have heard this is true....it is of course possible to deform the body by restricting growth etc as in the tying of the feet of Chinese girls........different reason of course but still a bit barbaric. I also saw a TV program not long ago where some strange alien shaped skulls were eventually proved to have been shaped by a similar "tying" method......all in the name of beauty, as with the feet tying..............beggars too in some countries are/were purposely deformed just so that they could follow their "trade"...Eugh!......funny old world.....commoner.

[Ward-Minter]

watch Todd Browning's 1930's movie "Freaks". A good insight.

[Octavius]

Of course it may have gone on, but circus 'freaks' such as Zip the Pinhead, Chang and Eng Bunker (The Siamese Twins),  Jim Tarver (the Texas Giant), Jack Earle (Tallest Man in the World) and Madame Olga (the Bearded Lady) were all born with their condition (the word freak is rather pejorative).

Zip (William Henry Johnson) was born to a very poor African-American family, his unusual appearance caused many to believe that he was a "pinhead", or microcephalic. Microcephalics are characterized by a small, tapering cranium and impaired mental faculty.  William Henry though was not mentally deficient.

Zip's early performances were set against a background story. It was told to the audience that a tribe of "missing links" had been discovered in Africa, and that Zip was one of these. It was further explained that the "wild man", the "What-Is-It", subsisted on raw meat, nuts, and fruit, but was learning to eat more civilized fare such as bread and cake.

Zip would then be revealed in a cage where he could rattle the bars and screech.  It is estimated that during his 67 years in show business, Zip entertained more than one hundred million people. He was termed "The Dean of Freaks" and became a shy hero when he rescued a drowning girl from the ocean near Coney Island in 1925.

He died in 1926 aged 84.  His last words were to his sister, Mrs. Van Duyne. He is quoted as saying, "Well, we fooled 'em for a long time!"

[maggie01]

did anyone see the film the elephant man. This was a freak of nature but it made me cry.

[jacey]

Didn't Michael Jackson buy the elephant man's bones? or at least try to ??

[Hgrove]

I believe this practice is described in Victor Hugo's novel "The man who laughs" first published 1880.