A Look At…
Victorian Freak Show Posters

Initially I was just going to do a short post where I banged up some old fashioned posters from Victorian freak shows for us all to enjoy. But the characters all looked so interesting I simply had to read into them a little. It was a strange, strange world back then and sensibilities were more than a little bit different. It’s certainly not OK to point and laugh at those that are physically different from us, but that doesn’t take away our primal urge to stare.

The poster below was for a fantastical play called Babil and Bijou, performed at the Alhambra Theatre. It was a performance heavy with special effects and featured this Amazonian woman from Germany. One of the posters, from 1882 says:

“Marian, the giant Amazon queen, will make her first appearance in England at the Royal Alhambra Theatre on Saturday, 8th July, in the magnificent silver armour scene in the enormously successful fairy extravaganza, “Babil & Bijou”. This young lady was born on the 31st January, 1866, at Benkendorf, a village near the Thuringia Mountains, Germany, and has attained the remarkable height of 8 feet 2 inches (2.49 m), and is still growing.”

I find it hard to believe she was 8ft 2in, but maybe she was, I would have been sorely tempted to watch the show though, so the marketing technique still works. The Guinness book of worldly records puts the tallest woman, China’s Zeng Jinlian, at just under 8ft 2in so it seems unlikely she really was that big.

The poster below showcases Chang and Eng Bunker, the original Siamese twins. They hailed from Thailand, which was known as Siam back then. So they were the first people to be called Siamese twins. After their world tour as a freak show act they went to live on a plantation in North Carolina, bought some slaves and made a go of it as American citizens. They both married, Chang had 10 kids and Eng 11! The wives squabbled and the two had to split their time between two house holds, although initially they all slept in a big bed made for four. I bet there were some odd sights in that bedroom.

Chang eventually died in his sleep, Eng woke to find his brother dead, called for emergency surgery but died before they could be separated. On a positive note, thanks to their impressively fruitful loins there are around 1,500 relatives alive today who have them to thank.

Julia Pastrana, a Mexican lady, suffered from hypertrichosis, so she was supertastically hairy all over. She also had Gingival hyperplasia which thickened her lips and gums. She toured successfully in America and Europe, Charles Darwin had this to say:

“Julia Pastrana, a Spanish dancer, was a remarkably fine woman, but she had a thick masculine beard and a hairy forehead; she was photographed, and her stuffed skin was exhibited as a show; but what concerns us is, that she had in both the upper and lower jaw an irregular double set of teeth, one row being placed within the other, of which Dr. Purland took a cast. From the redundancy of the teeth her mouth projected, and her face had a gorilla-like appearance”

Theodore Lent purchased her, possibly from her mother, and taught her to read and write three languages, and to dance. He also managed to impregnate her. Julia gave birth to a baby who was born with a similar condition but died at just three days old, Julia died of complications five days later. Lent did not let this stop him, he had them both mummified and continued to show them off. Later he found a similar looking woman who he named Zenora Pastrana. He made himself a lot of cash off of Zenora, he married her but ended his days in a mental institute in Russia.

You may have seen Julia Pastrana back in the news in February 2013 as she was finally re-interred in Mexico. Mario Lopez, the governor of Sinaloa state where Julia was born, lobbied to have her brought back from Norway where she had been stashed in a cupboard for years. She had a full Catholic funeral back in her home town. That’s nice.

I couldn’t find out anything specific about the man in the picture below; he seems to have been one of the many hypertrichosis sufferers that was paraded around in those days.

Krao Krao was born in Siam in 1876. She was covered with hair, including a mane-like track of hair flowing down her back from between her shoulder blades. Krao was discovered at the age of six by a promoter impressively named the Great Farini.

Farini took the girl on a successful tour of Europe before starting a tour in the United State. She was heralded as evidence for Darwin’s controversial theory and was dubbed “the missing link” by many. She eventually died of the flu aged 48 and a funeral on Coney Island was attended by many of the local freaks. Famous fat lady, Carrie Holt, said, “If anyone has gone to heaven, that woman has.”

Next up: Lalloo Ramparsad or Laloo was born in India with a fully attached parasitic twin that basically comprised of a few limbs and a lump of flesh stuck to his chest. His twin had a fully functioning penis and urinary tract, and although Lalloo could sense touch through his brother he was unaware of his need to urinate until it was too late. He was often described as the ‘Handsome, Healthy, Happy Hindoo’.

Lalloo was an activist and in 1889 campaigned vigorously for the word “prodigies” to be used in the place of “freaks”. It seems he was pretty successful and the word did stop getting banded around so heavily. He made a fair amount of cash from sideshows and the lending of himself to inquisitive doctors. He married a “normal” woman and lived a pretty lavish lifestyle. He died prematurely in a train crash aged just 32.

I couldn’t find much out about Miss C. Heenan (below) either unfortunately, but I found another poster advertising her girth and it says the following:

“Now exhibiting at The Universum, 369 Oxford Street, London; Miss C Heenan, the great prize lady and her four prize cups; 26 inches round her arms, 3 feet 6 inches across the shoulders and 7 feet round the body, weighs 40 stone, the heaviest female living.”

That’s nothing in modern day American terms is it? Walmart is today’s freak show I guess. Must try harder. Here’s what another advert had to say:

“Now exhibiting for a short time, at 122, Fleet Street, City, opposite Punch’s office. Just arrived from America! The greatest wonder of the world………Handsome in appearance, and not 19 years of age. .… Great reduction in price to give all classes an opportunity of seeing her. Admission:—Ladies and gentlemen, 3d. Working classes, after 6, 2d. Open from 12 till 11 p.m”

Lastly, no post about freaks would be complete without some miniature people. General Mite (real name Francis Flynn) and Millie Edwards, were a married couple who toured together showing off their stature to all comers. ”General Mite”, Australian born, is still considered one of the smallest human beings ever documented.

His adult height was 27″ and his weight around 12 pounds. The two “married” in Manchester, England when he was probably only about 12 but they said he was much older of course.

So there you go. It’s quite an uncomfortable trip down our cultural memory lane isn’t it? It wasn’t so long ago that we were pointing and laughing at physically deformed people. We know we can’t get away with that sort of thing nowadays, but there’s still that urge to stare. In these modern times we have to make do with laughing at people who are mentally impaired instead, through the medium of Jeremy Kyle and Come Dine With Me. I guess one day we’ll have to stop that too…..