Giants and dwarfs.

  • Wood, Edward J.
Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Giants and dwarfs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    has been suspended in my shop during a generation, whilst the giant frame and the mighty foot that was once its tenant having long since mouldered into common dust.” We are unable to fix the exact time when Cotter first visited London for exhibition; but he certainly was there in 1785, perhaps earlier; for a newspaper of June 20th, 1782, advertised an Irish giant, who perhaps was Cotter, although we incline to think that he was another person. The advertisement runs: “Just arrived from Ireland, and to be seen at the late bird-shop, the corner of the Haymarket and Piccadilly, the astonishing Irish giant, whose height surpasses the Patagonian; with admirable symmetry of body, and esteemed to be the most proportioned ever seen.” The advertisement goes on to describe a female dwarf, twenty-two years old, and thirty-two inches high, who was exhibited at the same place; and it concludes as follows: “ The nobility and gentry are hereby acquainted that their stay will be short, as they have the most pressing invitations to go to Paris.” A handbill of the same period invited the public to see “The great contrast. Just arrived from Ireland, and to be seen at the late bird-shop, the corner of the Haymarket & Piccadilly, the astonish- ing giant, or tall man, who has had the honour of being shewn to their majesties at Kew. This amazing phenomenon in nature has had the honour to be seen by a great number of nobility and gentry, many of
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