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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (July 25, 1901)
f ' L-i o UM Conservative * 1783. He possessed phenomenal strength , and his height was probably eight feet , six inches. He was full of natural wit ; but the fortune he rapidly gained by the exhibition of himself led him into habits of intemperance , and he died at the early age of twenty-two , leaving instructions that his body should be buried at sea. Nevertheless , the College of Surgeons of England managed to obtain it at a cost , it is eaid , of eight hundred pounds , and the skeleton was set up in their mu seum by William Hunter , the celebrated anatomist. It measures eight feet , four inches. The actual body , with the soft parts attached , could not , in my opinion , have been more than three inches taller than the skeleton. Shortly after Byrne's death , another Irish giant exhibited himself in London. His name was Patrick Cotter , but he took the name of O'Brien. He died in 1806 at the of . His , age forty-five. cor rect height was over eight feet , al though he appeared taller in consequence quence of being exceptionally thin. Being feeble and debilitated in health , he could only walk by supporting him self on the shoulders of two tall men. who walked in front of him , while he rested a hand upon the shoulder of each. This giant appears' to have been an amusing person , and he is said to have astonished his friends , more than once , by producing from his coat-pocket the Polish dwarf , Count Borulauski , and by other playful tricks which no ordinary man could accomplish. Frederick William I , of Prussia , had a regiment of giants , the tallest of whom was of Scottish birth , his height being eight feet , three inches. It is not im probable that the skeleton in the mu seum at Bonn ( Germany ) , which meas ures eight feet , is what remains of this once famous giant. There is on record an account of Bishop Berkeley's attempt to manu facture an abnormally large man out of an ordinary boy named Magrath. In his family history , I can find nothing of importance. He died , however , at the age of twenty , perhaps as a result oi being fed upon "selected articles of diet" furnished by the worthy bishop , Magrath's height is given as seven feet eight inches at the time of his decease , Giants are of rarer occurrence than dwarfs , and less than half a dozen of any great size seem to have been exhibited since O'Brien. Tellers appeared in 1819 his height was eight feet , six inches Chang , the Chinaman , who claimed to have grown from seven feet , eight inches to eight feet between 1865 and 1880 , has been shown almost all over the world In 1880 , when the writer saw him in London , ( England ) , it was impossible to ascertain his age , as nobody seemed to know it. He is said to be still alive , and to be in China. About 1885 , a Bavarian named Winokelmeier was an attraction at a London music hall. His height was , perhaps , eight feet , six inches. He did lot live to see his twenty-second birth day. The Biggest of them All. The biggest living man ( in stature ) is Lewis Wilkins , who is now in Europe. He was bom on a form near St. Paul , Minn. , in 1874. When only ten years Id , he measured six feet in height , and now has grown to the tremendous height of 107)4 inches three-fourths of an inch less than nine feet and weighs 164 pounds. . Female giants are not common , and ; he only authentic information at my disposal concerns Pauline Wedde , "the Queen of the Amazons. " She was a well-proportioned German girl , who measured eight feet and four inches when she played in "Babil and Bijou , " some thirty years ago. The health of men of abnormal size is very seldom good ; their muscles are labby , and their voices are often weak. As might be expected , they ore good- tempered , indolent , and lack force of character. . Buffalo , N. Y. 0 TWO SUGGESTIONS. Here are two suggestions from J. Sterling Morton's CONSERVATIVE. All bhe "pop plans" ever proposed , all the suggestions ever made by His Turbulent Loquacity , Mr. Bryan , would not result in as much permanent good to the state of Nebraska as would come through the two ideas here offered , if they were car ried out : "Every twenty-four hours the rail roads , manufacturers and homebuilders ers of the United States denude twenty- five thousand acres-of timbered land. That is , there is a daily consumption of all the wood , the trees on twenty-five thousand acres supply. How many acres are planted ? Twenty-five. Next Arbor day , April 22 , 1902 , let each of the one hundred counties in the state of Nebraska plant at least two-hundred and fifty acres in trees. Let there be one day in the year in which one state shall plant as many acres in trees as all the states destroy. Nebraska ought to plant twenty-five thousand acres of timber next Arbor Day. " "The common roads of Nebraska are sixty-six feet in width. That is an un necessary waste of good land and i constant method of weed propagation. Legislation permitting county commis sioners to sell one-half and make all roads in the state only thirty-three feet in width would be beneficial. The land money thus accumulated would make a permanent road fund. If this can not be done , compel the planting of trees on either side of the road until thirty-three feet is utilized for arbori culture. " York Republican. FATHER DE SMET. / General Grenvillo M. Dodge writes thus to the editor of THE CONSERVATIVE : "I notice in an article in your paper a reference to the books of Father Do Smet. Could Mr. Richardson inform me where the books published by Father De Smet can be obtained , or give me the name of the publishers ? I have been anxious to obtain them. In my early explorations in the West I often ran across his work , especially in the Indian campaign of 1805 , when we found the remains of an old mission near the Salt fork of Powder river that no one seemed to know of , or its history. We were supposed to be in a country that little was known of , and I know we made the first trails over it. I learned that the mission was built by Father De Smet from some of the Indians , but I could obtain no history of it ; perhaps his books might mention it. It was near the head of Powder river , fifty or sixty miles from the Big Horn range , and I should say about 100 miles north of old Fort Fetterman , which then was on the North fork of the Platte , about 100 miles west of old Fort Laramie. " Mr. Richardson does not know where Father De Srnet's writings can be found , and he is very sorry that he does not , because he wants to buy them himself. They are long out of print , and quite hard to find. Perhaps somebody can tell where copies are to be had , and some thing about the old mission in Wyoming of which General Dodge speaks. CHILDREN SHOULD BE TAUGHT IN DUSTRY. J. Sterling Morton in fee Conserva tive says that no American parent has any right to rear a child without teach ing it industry. The human being , who from infancy to maturity , is indulged in all things asked for , makes a selfish , in considerate , and useless member of so ciety. Human beings who do not work , get very little of real honey out of life. They are offensive and repellent. They are in old age remorseful and unhappy. The very room they occupy on , the globe is begrudged them. Mr. Morton has followed his own precepts in case of his own sons evidently , for they have all stepped to the front rank in fhe com mercial world and that is not done in this age without persistent hard work. His son Paul , of the Atchison road , has been offered , only last weekthe manage ment of the Harriman combination with a salary of $50,000 a year. This is a stride upward tha < was not possible under conditions existing twenty-five years ago. This , however , is an age of colossal salaries. It is more that Paul's father ever got. J. 'Sterling Morton once said in commenting npon his sons' success , that they had shown better judgment than their father , because they had kept out of politics and at tended to business. Ottumwa Saturday Herald , July 18 , 1901.
