Part 46

In later days there have been many dwarf-favourites at European courts. British tradition has its earliest dwarf mentioned in the old ballad which begins "In Arthur's court Tom Thumb did live"; and on this evidence the prototype of the modern Tom Thumb is alleged to have lived at the court of King Edgar. Of authentic English dwarfs the first appears to be John Jarvis (2 ft. high), who was page to Queen Mary I. Her brother Edward VI. had his dwarf Xit. But the first English dwarf of whom there is anything like an authentic history is Jeffery Hudson (1619-1682). He was the son of a butcher at Oakham, Rutlandshire, who kept and baited bulls for George Villiers, first duke of Buckingham. Neither of Jeffery's parents was under-sized, yet at nine years he measured scarcely 18 in., though he was gracefully proportioned. At a dinner given by the duke to Charles I. and his queen he was brought in to table in a pie out of which he stepped, and was at once adopted by Henrietta Maria. The little fellow followed the fortunes of the court in the Civil War, and is said to have been a captain of horse, earning the nickname of "strenuous Jeffery" for his activity. He fought two duels--one with a turkey-cock, a battle recorded by Davenant, and a second with Mr Crofts, who came to the meeting with a squirt, but who in the more serious encounter which ensued was shot dead by little Hudson, who fired from horseback, the saddle putting him on a level with his antagonist. Twice was Jeffery made prisoner--once by the Dunkirkers as he was returning from France, whither he had been on homely business for the queen; the second time was when he fell into the hands of Turkish pirates. His sufferings during this latter captivity made him, he declared, grow, and in his thirtieth year, having been of the same height since he was nine, he steadily increased until he was 3 ft. 9 in. At the Restoration he returned to England, where he lived on a pension granted him by the duke of Buckingham. He was later accused of

## participation in the "Popish Plot," and was imprisoned in the Gate

House. He was released and shortly after died in the sixty-third year of his age.

Contemporary with Hudson were the two other dwarfs of Henrietta Maria, Richard Gibson and his wife Anne. They were married by the queen's wish; and the two together measured only 2 in. over 7 ft. They had nine children, five of whom, who lived, were of ordinary stature. Edmund Waller celebrated the nuptials, Evelyn designated the husband as the "compendium of a man," and Lely painted them hand in hand. Gibson was miniature painter to Charles I., and drawing-master to the daughters of James II., Queens Mary and Anne, when they were children. This Cumberland pygmy, who began his career as a page, first in a "gentle," next in the royal family, died in 1690, in his seventy-fifth year, and is buried in St Paul's, Covent Garden. The last court dwarf in England was Coppernin, a lively little imp in the service of the princess (Augusta) of Wales, the mother of George III. The last dwarf retainer in a gentleman's family was the one kept by Mr Beckford, the author of _Vathek_ and builder of Fonthill. He was rather too big to be flung from one guest to another, as used to be the custom at dinners in earlier days when a dwarf was a "necessity" for every noble family.

Of European court dwarfs the most famous were those of Philip IV. of Spain, the hunchbacks whose features have been immortalized by Velazquez. Stanislas, king of Poland, owned Nicholas Ferry (Bebe), who measured 2 ft. 9 in. He was one of three dwarf children of peasant parents in the Vosges. He died in his 23rd year (1764). But Bebe was not so remarkable as Richebourg, who died in Paris in 1858, at the age of 90. He was only 23 in. high. He began life as a servant in the Orleans family. In later years he was their pensioner. He is said to have been put to strange use in the Revolution--passing in and out of Paris as an infant in a nurse's arms, but with despatches, dangerous to carry, in the little man's baby-wrappings!

Of dwarfs exhibited in England, the most celebrated was the Pole, Borulwaski (1739-1837). At six he measured 17 in., and he finally in his thirtieth year reached 39 in. He had a sister shorter than himself by the head and shoulders. Borulwaski was a handsome man, a wit, and something of a scholar. He travelled over all Europe; and he--born in the reign of George II.--died in his well-earned retirement near Durham, in the reign of Victoria. Borulwaski lies buried at Durham by the side of the Falstaffian Stephen Kemble. The companionship reminds one of that of the dwarf skeleton of Jonathan Wild by the side of that of the Irish Giant, at the Royal College of Surgeons, London.

In the year in which Borulwaski died, Charles Stratton, better known as "General Tom Thumb," was born. When twenty-five he was 31 in. high. In 1844 he appeared in England, where he had an extraordinary success. One result of his season at the Egyptian Hall, London, was to kill Haydon the painter. The latter presented his great work "The Banishment of Aristides" for exhibition in the same building. The public rushed to see the dwarf. He took L600 the first week, while Haydon's masterpiece drew but L7, 13s. The result was that the artist committed suicide in despair. After extensive travel in both hemispheres, Stratton again visited England in 1857, but the dwarf man, despite many personal and intellectual qualities, was less attractive than the dwarf boy. In the year 1863 the "General" married the very minute American lady, Lavinia Warren (born in 1842). He died on the 15th of July 1883.

Other modern dwarfs include Signor Hervio Nano, who played at the Olympic Theatre, London, in 1843; three Highlanders named MacKinlay, children of a Scots shepherd, the shortest of whom was 45 in.; a Spaniard, Don Francisco Hidalgo (29 in.); a Dutchman, Jan Hannema (28 in.); and Mary Jane Youngman (Australia), who at fifteen was 35 in. high. She was called the "dwarf-giantess" because she was 3 ft. 6 in. round the shoulders, 4 ft. 3 in. round the waist, and 2 ft. round the leg. Much interest was aroused by the so-called Aztec dwarfs who were exhibited in London in 1853. In 1867 the pair were married, the ceremony being publicly performed, and the bride's robes are said to have cost no less than L2000. The wedding-breakfast was held at Willis's Rooms. From time to time other dwarfs have been exhibited, among whom the most remarkable has been Che-mah, a Chinese, 42 years old and 25 in. high, who appeared in London in 1880. George Prout (1774-1851), who was less than 3 ft. high, was a well-known character in London in the early Victorian period, as a messenger at the Houses of Parliament.

See E.J. Wood, _Giants and Dwarfs_ (1860).

DWARS, a tract of country in north-east India. It consists of two divisions, the Western Dwars and the Eastern Dwars, both of which belonged to Bhutan prior to the Bhutan War of 1864-65, as a result of which they passed into possession of the British, when the Eastern Dwars were assigned to Assam and the Western to Bengal. Since 1905 both divisions have been in the province of Eastern Bengal and Assam. The five Eastern Dwars, entitled respectively Bijni, Sidli, Chirang, Ripu and Guma, are situated in the Goalpara district of Eastern Bengal and Assam, forming a strip of flat country lying beneath the Bhutan mountains. It is an unhealthy country for natives as well as Europeans, and is but slightly developed. The Western Dwars form a region lying at the foot of the Himalayas in the north-east of the Jalpaiguri district of Eastern Bengal and Assam, which comprises nine _parganas_, namely, Bhalka, Bhatibari, Baxa, Chakao-Kshattriya, Madari, Lakshmipur, Maraghat, Mainaguri and Chengmari. The Western Dwars are an important centre of the tea-planting industry.

DWIGHT, JOHN (d. 1703), the first distinguished English potter. One can only surmise as to his parentage, and the date of his birth has been variously given from 1637 to 1640. Apparently he was educated at Oxford, and in 1661 was appointed registrar and scribe to the diocese of Chester, and the same year he proceeded to the degree of B.C.L. of Christ Church, Oxford. He resided at Chester for some time and acted as secretary to four successive bishops. One of these, Bishop Hall, also held the rectory of Wigan, Lancashire, and Dwight seems to have resided in that town, for three of his children were baptized there between 1667 and 1671. In 1671, while he still apparently resided in Wigan, he was granted his first patent for "the mistery of transparent earthenware, commonly known by the names of porcelain or china, and of stoneware, vulgarly called Cologne ware." It is not believed that much, if any, work was executed at Wigan, and he probably removed to Fulham in 1672 or 1673, as his name first appears on the rate books of Fulham, where he was rated for a house in Bear Street, in 1674. He died in 1703, and his business was carried on by his descendants for some time, but with gradually diminishing success. It has been claimed that Dwight made the first porcelain in England, but there is no proof of this, though magnificent specimens of stoneware from his hands are in existence. The British Museum contains a number of the best of Dwight's pieces, of which the finest is the bust of Prince Rupert. Other specimens are in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and they are sufficient to establish Dwight's fame as a potter of the first rank. (See CERAMICS.)

DWIGHT, JOHN SULLIVAN (1813-1893), American writer on music, was born at Boston and educated at Harvard. He became a Unitarian minister, but abandoned this career and joined the Brook Farm settlement as a teacher of music and other subjects. In 1848 he settled as a musical critic at Boston, being best known as founder and editor of the _Journal of Music_ (1852-1881), the most important musical periodical that has been published in America. He died on the 5th of September 1893.

G.W. Cooke edited his letters (1898) and also wrote a memoir (1899).

DWIGHT, THEODORE WILLIAM (1822-1892), American jurist and educationalist, cousin of Theodore Dwight Woolsey and of Timothy Dwight, was born on the 18th of July 1822 in Catskill, New York. His father, Benjamin Woolsey Dwight (1780-1850), an abolitionist and reformer, removed to Clinton, New York, in 1831. The son graduated at Hamilton College in 1840, studied physics under S.F.B. Morse and John William Draper, taught classics in Utica Academy in 1840-1841, and studied law for one year at Yale. He was tutor at Hamilton in 1841-1846, at the same time teaching law privately; was made Maynard professor of law, history, civil polity, and political economy in 1846; received recognition of his law school in 1853, and in 1858 accepted an invitation to Columbia to teach law upon his own condition that he should found a law school. He himself _was_ this school for many years and did not retire from it until 1891, about a year before his death, at Clinton, New York, on the 28th of June 1892. A man of broad culture, he was best known as the founder of a famous school of law and a famous method of legal teaching, which was broadly educational and which called for class-room recitation on the text-book studied and opposed mere "taking notes" on lectures. His questioning was illustrative and its method Socratic. He was a non-resident professor of law at Cornell (1869-1871) and at Amherst (1870-1872). Dwight was an able jurist, frequently acted as referee in difficult questions, in 1874-1875 was a judge of the New York commission of appeals, appointed to clear the docket of the court of appeals, and in 1886 was counsel for the five Andover professors charged with heresy. He was a prominent figure in political and social (notably prison) reforms; published in 1867 a _Report on the Prisons and Reformatories of the United States and Canada_, the result of his labours on a New York state prison commission with Enoch Cobb Wines (1806-1879); favoured indeterminate sentences; drew up the bill for the establishment of the Elmira Reformatory; and organized the State Charities Aid Association. He edited Sir Henry Maine's _Ancient Law_ (1864); was associate editor of the _American Law Register_ and legal editor of _Johnson's Cyclopaedia_; and published _Charitable Uses: Argument in the Rose Will Case_ (1863).

DWIGHT, TIMOTHY (1752-1817), American divine, writer, and educationalist, was born at Northampton, Massachusetts, on the 14th of May 1752. His father, Timothy Dwight, a graduate of Yale College (1744), was a merchant, and his mother was the third daughter of Jonathan Edwards. He was remarkably precocious, and is said to have learned the alphabet at a single lesson, and to have been able to read the Bible before he was four years old. In 1769 he graduated at Yale College, and then for two years taught in a grammar school at New Haven. He was a tutor in Yale College from 1771 to 1777; and then, having been licensed to preach, was a chaplain for a year in a regiment of troops engaged in the War of Independence, inspiring the troops both by his sermons and by several stirring war songs, the most famous of which is "Columbia." From 1778 until 1783 he lived at Northampton, studying, farming, preaching, and dabbling in politics. From 1783 until 1795 he was pastor of the Congregational church at Greenfield Hill, Connecticut, where he opened an academy which at once acquired a high reputation and attracted pupils from all parts of the Union. From 1795 until his death at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the 11th of January 1817, he was president of Yale College, and by his judicious management, by his remarkable ability as a teacher--he taught a variety of subjects, including theology, metaphysics, logic, literature and oratory,--and by his force of character and magnetic personality, won great popularity and influence, and restored that institution to the high place from which it had fallen before his appointment. President Dwight was also well known as an author. In verse he wrote an ambitious epic in eleven books, _The Conquest of Canaan_, finished in 1774, but not published until 1785; a somewhat ponderous and solemn satire, _The Triumph of Infidelity_ (1788), directed against Hume, Voltaire and others; _Greenfield Hill_ (1794), the suggestion for which seems to have been derived from John Denham's _Cooper's Hill_; and a number of minor poems and hymns, the best known of which is that beginning "I love thy kingdom, Lord." Many of his sermons were published posthumously under the titles _Theology Explained and Defended_ (5 vols., 1818-1819), to which a memoir of the author by his two sons, W.T. and Sereno E. Dwight, is prefixed, and _Sermons by Timothy Dwight_ (2 vols., 1828), which had a large circulation both in the United States and in England. Probably his most important work, however, is his _Travels in New England and New York_ (4 vols., 1821-1822), which contains much material of value concerning social and economic New England and New York during the period 1796-1817.

See W.B. Sprague's "Life of Timothy Dwight" in vol. iv. (second series) of Jared Sparks's _Library of American Biography_, and especially an excellent chapter in Moses Coit Tyler's _Three Men of Letters_ (New York, 1895).

His fifth son, SERENO EDWARDS DWIGHT (1786-1850), born in Greenfield Hill, Connecticut, graduated at Yale in 1803, was a tutor there in 1806-1810, and successfully practised law in New Haven in 1810-1816. Licensed to preach in 1816, he was the chaplain of the United States Senate for one year, was pastor of the Park Street church, Boston, in 1817-1826, and in 1833-1835 was president of Hamilton College, Clinton, New York. His career was wrecked by accidental mercury poisoning, which interfered with his work in Boston and at Hamilton College, and made his life after 1839 solitary and comparatively uninfluential. His publications include _Life and Works of Jonathan Edwards_ (10 vols., 1830); _The Hebrew Wife_ (1836), an argument against marriage with a deceased wife's sister; and _Select Discourses_ (1851); to which was prefixed a biographical sketch by his brother William Dwight (1795-1865), who was also successively a lawyer and a Congregational preacher.

President Dwight's grandson, TIMOTHY DWIGHT (1828- ), a famous preacher and educationalist, was born at Norwich, Connecticut, on the 16th of November 1828. He graduated at Yale in 1849, continued his studies there and at Bonn and Berlin, was professor of sacred literature and New Testament Greek in the Yale Divinity School from 1858 to 1886, was licensed to preach in 1861, and from 1886 to 1899 was president of Yale, which during his administration greatly prospered and became in name and in fact a university. Dr Dwight was also a member in 1876-1885 of the American committee for the revision of the English Bible, was an editor from 1866 to 1874 of the _New Englander_, which later became the _Yale Review_, and besides editing and annotating several volumes of the English translation of H.A.W. Meyer's _Kritisch-exegetischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament_, and writing many magazine articles, published a collection of sermons entitled _Thoughts of and for the Inner Life_ (1899).

DYAKS, or DAYAKS, the name given to the wild tribes found in Borneo by the Malays on their first settlement there. Whether they are the aborigines of the island or the successors of a Negrito people whom they expelled is uncertain. If the latter, they are descendants of an early pre-Malayan immigration. In any case, though regarded by the Malays as aliens, the Dyaks are of the same stock as the Malays. For themselves they have no general name; but, broken as they are into numerous tribes, they are distinguished by separate tribal names, many of which seem to be merely those of the rivers on which their settlements are situated. Sir Harry Keppel, who attempted to form a classification of the Dyaks according to their ethnographical affinity, divides them into five principal branches. The first of these, which he calls the north-western, includes the natives of Sadong, Sarawak, Sambas, Landak, Tayan, Melionow and Sangow. They all speak the same language, and are remarkable for their dependence on the Malay princes. The second branch, which is called emphatically the Malayan from its greater retention of Malay characteristics, occupies the north coast in Banting, Batang-Lupar, Rejang and part of the valley of the Kapuas. To the third or Parian branch belong the Dyaks of the rivers Kuti and Passir, who are said to speak a language like that of Macassar. The fourth consists of the Beyadjoes, who are settled in the valley of the Banjermassin; and the fifth and lowest comprises the Manketans and Punans, who are still nomadic and ignorant of agriculture.

Physically the Dyaks differ little from the Malays except in their slimmer figure, lighter colour, more prominent nose and higher forehead. In disposition they are as cheerful as the Malay is morose. The typical Dyak is rather slightly built, but is active and capable of enduring great fatigue. His features are distinctly marked and often well formed. The forehead is generally high, and the eyes are dark; the cheek-bones are broad; the hair is black, and the colour of the skin a pure reddish brown, frequently, in the female, approaching the Chinese complexion. The beard is generally scanty, and in many tribes the men pull out all the hair of the face. Both sexes file, dye, and sometimes bore holes in the teeth and insert gold buttons. In dress there is considerable variety, great alterations having resulted from foreign influence. The original and still prevailing style is simple, consisting of a waistcloth, generally of blue cotton, for the men, and a tight-fitting petticoat for the women, who acquire a peculiar mincing gait from its interference with their walking. The favourite ornaments of both sexes are brass rings for the legs and arms, hoops of rattan decorated in various ways, necklaces of white and black beads, and crescent-shaped ear-rings of a large size. The lobes of the ears are distended sometimes nearly to the shoulders by disks of metal and bits of stick. Tattooing is practised by most of the tribes, and the skulls of infants are artificially deformed. The men usually go bare-headed, or wear a bright-coloured kerchief. The custom of betel-chewing being most universal, the betel-pouch is always worn at the side. The weapons in use are a curved sword and a long spear. The bow is unknown, but its place among some tribes is partly supplied by the blowpipe, in the boring of which they show great skill. When going to war the Dyak wears a strong padded jacket, which proves no bad defence. A curious custom among some tribes is the imprisonment of young girls for two or three years before puberty, during which time they are not allowed to see even their mothers.

The Dyak is decidedly intelligent, has a good memory and keen powers of observation, is unsuspicious and hospitable, and honest and truthful to a striking degree. The various tribes differ greatly in religious ceremonies and beliefs. They have no temples, priests or regular worship; but the father of each family performs rites. A supreme god, Sang-Sang, seems generally acknowledged, but subordinate deities are supposed to watch over special departments of the world and human affairs. Sacrifices both of animals and fruits--and in some cases even of human beings--are offered to appease or invoke the gods; divination of various kinds is resorted to for the purpose of deciding the course to be pursued in any emergency; and criminals are subjected to the ordeal by poison or otherwise. Offerings are made to the dead, and there is a very strong belief in the existence of evil spirits, and all kinds of calamities and diseases are ascribed to their malignity. Thus almost the whole medical system of the Dyaks consists in the application of appropriate charms or the offerings of conciliatory sacrifices. Many of those natives who have had much intercourse with the Malays have adopted a kind of mongrel Mahommedanism, with a mixture of Hindu elements. The transmigration of souls seems to be believed in by some tribes; and some have a system of successive heavens rising one above the other very much in the style of the Hindu cosmogony. In the treatment of their dead much variety prevails; they are sometimes buried, sometimes burned, and sometimes elevated on a lofty framework. The Dyaks have no exact calculation of the year, and simply name the months first month, second month, and so on. They calculate the time of day by the height of the sun, and if asked how far distant a place is can only reply by showing how high the sun would be when you reached it if you set out in the morning.