CONJOINED twins, a baby with no arms or legs and a ‘legless’ girl on a swing are among the disturbing pictures of kids and adults paraded as freaks in the Victorian era.
The heartbreaking black and white photos, which also include dwarves, a baby with hydrocephalus and an angelic boy with gigantism in his hands, are part of a private collection from the Thanatos Archive.
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The remarkable pictures reveal the peculiar Victorian fascination for physical oddities, and the horror endured by the vulnerable people put on show as “freaks”.
Some feature on picture cards, known as carte de visites or cabinet cards, which were wildly popular amongst the public and traded as ‘social currency.’
The photographs show circus attractions such as Che-Mah, known as The Chinese Dwarf, who stood a tiny 28-inches tall and tipping the scales at 40 pounds.
He was discovered by P.T. Barnum, and joined the Barnum and Bailey Circus in the USA.
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Another favourite of P.T. Barnum’s circus was Laloo, who was born with a parasitic twin brother who was little more than a headless mass of lumbs attached to his breastbone.
Laloo’s brother consisted of two arms and two legs, a functioning penis with a complete urinary system and was quite capable of maintaining an erection at inopportune times.
Laloo, from Oudh, India, was immensely popular in the USA and appeared in numerous sideshows across the states.
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He is said to have lived a lavish life because of his financial success as an oddity, but he was also a keen rights activist and led calls for sideshow performers to be referred to as “prodigies” and not “freaks.”
Other images show Guadalupe and Josephine Hinojosa, conjoined twins from Cuba who inspired a Mark Twain story, These Extraordinary Twins.
Another shows a little girl with Apert syndrome – a condition not recognised until decades after the image was taken.
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More disturbing images – not shown here – feature strange foetuses including a 30lb baby from Illionois. Handwritten on the back of the photo is ‘Born in Effingham, Ill, 1939. Has a tail, no eyes, no nostrils, enlarged ears. Weighed 30lbs at birth.’
We recently revealed the bizarre and elaborate Halloween outfits of children from 100 years ago.
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