BOHEMIAN TWINS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 2978, 11 January 1881, Page 2

BOHEMIAN TWINS.

Abnormal development in mankind is rarely pleasing, more frequently it is repulsive. Occasionally, as in the well-known Tom Thumb, or the giant Chang, for example, exceptions occur. When the abnormality goes to the extent of two bodies being united together the effect on the fovm, and sometimes in the faces, is not pleasant. There is a healthy interest in examining such abnormalities, and there is morbid curiosity. How two beings so united together that one cannot move,without the other, control their wills, their whims, and fancies so as to agree is an attractive study. At the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, there are at present to be seen a little boy and a girl, who are Bohemian twins, with pleasing faces, light blue eyes, and light hair, who have apparently an osseous as well as a muscular union. From the waist upwards they are quite distinct, and the four lower limbs are quite distinct, the pelvis arches are distinct in front, but, as far as can be known by the pressure of the hand, they seem fused at tho back. When the two little ones are sitting the vertebral column of the two is nearly straight, and it does not seem possible to discriminate where each ends, even when they ars standing up, except the coccygeal bones are wanting. That which will mostly interest the general public is the way in which they play. The left-hand one is slightly taller and stronger than the other, and seems to lead the direction in which they should walk. It is very amusing to sec them scrambling after apples, and this shows their individual wills, for if one gets an apple and the other does not the one is happily feeding while the other is sobbing. The father, mother, and nurse are with them, and their little childish griefs are as soon put right as in any well-ordered nursery. The distinct individuality of their nervous systems is further illustrated by the way in winch one is drowsy and the other lively. In fact, one, it is stated, has been fast asleep while the other is wide awake. As they were born on January 20, 1875, and can talk but little, they have not been taught any tricks, but their enjoyment of life, as if unconscious that theirs is not the usual condition of life, is as interesting to watch as that of normal children. The father is thirty-five and the mother twenty-five, peasants of the Tabor district of Bohemia, they state. There are peculiarities which oul'y Anatomists would understand. For the ■reneral public a short time spent in watching these children in their gambols must be a time of great interest.