IRISH AND BRITISH GIANTS.

Thames Star, Volume XIV, Issue 4451, 11 April 1883, Page 2

IRISH AND BRITISH GIANTS.

The Emerald Isle has long been famous for producing giants. The most celebrated of theme was the welUknown O'Brien, whom we first hear of as a great raw youth crying in a public-house because unable to pay the bill, having been left penniless through • quarrel with his exhibitor, fr gentleman, taking companion on him, paid his debt, and advised the young giant to set up on his own account. Acting on the recommendation, O'Brien started a public house in Bristol, long known by the sign of the "Giant's j Castle." A memorial tablet in Trenchard | street Roman Catholic Chapel records his stature as having been eight feet three inebes. His colossal proportions once saved the giant from being robbed, the highwayman who. stopped his carriage riding away in terror at the. sight of O'Brien's huge face thrust through the window to see what was the matter: Of nearly the same proportions was Charles Byrne, who died in Cookspur street, I Charing Cross, at the age of twenty-two, I'his death being accelerated by intern* ' perate habits, said to be caused by sorrow at the loss of all his property. There is an account of another Irish giant; Edward Malone, who is asserted on good authority to have been seven feet seven inches in his stockings when he was only nineteen yean of age. 'England may boast of having produced the well* known Lancashire prodigy commonly known as the " Child of Hale," noted for his great stature and remarkable strength. Then there was Thomas Hall, known as the giant of Willingham, who was more than three feet nine inches when not quite three years old, his growth progressing afterwards at the rate of an inch per mouth. Before he was three years old the calf of his leg, we are told, was above ten inches round; and his weight two years later was upwards of six stove. His strength was in proportion to his size. When less than four years old he is said to have thrown a hammer weighing seventeen pounds a considerable distance; and when some months younger could place a large Cheshire cheese on his head. He appears to have been .equally precocious in his tastes, for at the same age it seems he could lift two gallons of ale to his mouth and drink freely. At an early age his voice was like a man's, and when only five years otd he had all the bearing of an adult person. In appearance fie was serious and sedate, and though not violent or cruel, , had little lore or fear in his disposition. He died of consumption, and shortly before his decease developed a thiok pair of whiskers add a beard. Then there was the Cornish giant Cbilloott. who measured round the chert six feet nine inches, and weighed four hundred and sixty pounds. When it is stated that one of bis stockings held six gallons of wheat, we are sure of the reader's sympathy "with the woman who may have had to karffl^ darn a pair of such dimensions.—Cham' bers's Journal.