Volume 1

The world of wonders : a record of things wonderful in nature, science, and art.

Date:
1883-1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The world of wonders : a record of things wonderful in nature, science, and art. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    pan was fractured. It was the opinion of Desagu- liers that, had he gone properly to work, Topham might have pulled successfully against four horses instead of two. The two-horse feat was accomplished in the last century by another powerful individual, a German, named Van Eckeburg. This man sat down on an inclined board, with his feet stretched out against a j fixed support, and two strong horses were then unable to remove him from his position. Standing upon a platform, like Topham, he sustained the weight of a large cannon round his waist. Dr. Brewster explains in his Natural Magic that these latter feats are less remarkable than they appear, owing to the immense strength of the mus- cles of the loins and thighs. An ordinarily strong man can pull against a horse when properly adjusted, and lift immense weights by a girdle round the loins. WONDERFUI^ BIRTHS. We propose to give here a notice of some of the most remarkable instances of numerous births which from time to time have been chronicled. It will appear almost incredible that so many as twenty children should have sprung from one mother, but among the cases enumerated here will be found some very much more remarkable in point of number. There is a singular instance of numerous births to be found in the English Causes Celebres, where Colonel James Turner, in his defence, speaking of his wife, says, She sat down, being somewhat fat and weary, poor heart! I have had twenty-seven children by her, fifteen sons and twelve daughters. Some remarkable instances of this have been chronicled at dif- ferent times in the Gentleman's Magazine. In the year 1736 we find a notice of the birth of the thirty-fifth child by one husband of a woman in Vere Street. In 1743 is recorded the death of Agnes Milbourne, aged 106, who had been the mother of thirty children. In 1738, we are told of ' a Mr. Thomas Rogers, a change-broker, who had by his wife twenty-nine children, born and chris- tened. On July 31st, 1781, it is mentioned that a man and woman at Kirton-le-Moor, in Cum- berland, together with their thirty children, the youngest of whom was between two and three years old, walked to church to the christening of their thirty-first child. In the Collectanea Topographica is noticed the case of Thomas Greenhill, surgeon to the Duke of Norfolk, 1698, who petitioned the Earl Marshal, that in consideration of your petitioner being the seventh son and thirty-ninth j child of one father and mother, your grace would ' be pleased to signalise it by some particular re- j mark or augmentation in his coat of arms, to transmit to posterity so uncommon a thing. It may be observed that the confirmation of the arms | contains no reference to the fact. A still more wonderful instance is given in the same work, of a weaver in Scotland, who had by one woman sixty-two children, of whom four daughters and forty-six sons lived to grow up. This account is given on the authority of several credible wit- nesses. In each of these cases it will be observed that the children were all born of the same parents. Two other cases are recorded slightly different : one of a man who had eighty-seven children by two wives, of which sixty-nine were by the first, eighteen by the second ; another who had seventy- two children by two wives, one of whom was the mother of thirty-two children. Perhaps still more wonderful are the cases on record of the number of children which have been born at a single birth. It is stated in the Gentleman's Magazine for March, 1798, that in the commune of Verchoq, department of Pas-de- Calais, the wife of Pierre Francois Duisain had six children at a birth, three boys and three girls;. they were all born alive, but died soon after. Dinora Salviati, wife of Bartolomeo Frescobaldi, a member of an old Florentine house, gave birth to fifty-two children in all, of whom never less than three were born at one time. In Aubrey's Natural History of Wiltshire we find an account of an inscription at Wishford Magna, to Thomas Bonham and Edith his wife, who died in the years 1473 and 1469 respectively. Mrs. Bonham had two children at one birth the first time, and after an interval of seven years she had as many as seven children at once. There is a tradition, which is recorded in the parish register, that all the seven children were brought together to the font of the church and there baptised. George A WONDER _OF_JlELATIONSHIP. The following remarkable genealogical curiosity appeared originally in Hood's Magazine^2X\^ is a singular piece of reasoning to prove that a man may be his own grandfather. There was a widow [Anne] and her daughter [Jane], and a man [George] and his son [Henry]. The widow married the son, and the daughter married the father. The widow was there- fore mother [in law] to her husband's father, and grand- mother to her own husband. By this husband she had a son [David], to whom she was also great-grandmother. Now, the son of a great-grandmother must be grand- father or grand-uncle to the person to whom his motherwas great-grandmother; but Anne was great- grandmother to him [David], therefore David is his own grandfather. The accompanying diagram will enable the reader to follow this more eacily.