CURIOUS FREAKS OF NATURE

Ashburton Guardian, Issue 1980, 26 October 1888, Page 2

CURIOUS FREAKS OF NATURE

Mature had certainly m times gone by played some marvellous tricks on mankind* The instances about to be related are exceedingly curious. Everyone of course has heard of the Siamese twins, but very few hare heard lof the following and somewhat similar oase. About the beginning of the sixteenth century a male child was born m Scotland. Bub, b! range to say, from its waist upwards there were two distinct bodies, heads, etc. The king was anxious that these t«ro bodies should be well looked after, and their education properly at* tended to. The two bodies had perfectly different »• tastes and appatJtoß They could also sing very well, one having a treb'o and the other a tenor voice. They lived to the age of twenty- eight. One of them dying some days before the oi her, left the remaining one to die a wretched death, its end hastened by having to carry about its <3ead companion. There have been other similar instances, but seldom have those concerned lived so long as the above mentioned instance, Another carious human being iris Matthew Buoklnger. 'He iru born on the 2nd of Jane, 1674, at Nuremburg, m Germany, destitute of hands, feet, legs, or thigha. la foot he differsd very little from the trunk of a man, bnt for two growths which, protruding from his shoal* ders, were mjro aimlUr to the fiai of ft fiih rather than the arms of a man. Baoklnger was the Uit of nine children, and as nothing ii said about his parents, it may be presumed that their limbs wera perfeot. If nature deprived him of sp much that Individuals would esto-nn highly essential to » usaf al or happy life, she certainly made up for it by endowing him with abilities suoh as she has seldom given to other mortals. ... Matthew Baoklnger attained a wonder* ful perfection m drawing and painting. He played on various mualcal instruments with a. precision and accuracy that astonUhed his Auditors He also wrote beamlfaliy, exeoating drawings with a pen and Indian ink, produoiog ooats of arms, sketches of portraits, eto,, extremely well. * .. , One thing he did excited the admiration of all who saw it. This was a sketoh cl Mr Herbert, of- o>eshunt, In Hertfordshire, which was most exquisitely done"; but the marvellous part of it was that he managed to insert within the flowing ourli of Mr H e rher t|j» w^jp. Mr ih^ «?j|h. J2l »X .^ 128 th, l«o^anlf' J i49"h PsaTmst*is well as the Lord's Prayer, all of It being fairly and legibly written. It being the custom of those who vialted him to purchase some or one of his productions, he managed to support his aged parents, rs well aa "to provide for himself.