XXXI.

A DWARF.

In the reign of K‘ang Hsi, there was a magician who carried about with him a wooden box, in which he had a dwarf not much more than a foot in height. When people gave him money he would open the box and bid the little creature come out. The dwarf would then sing a song and go in again. Arriving one day at Yeh, the magistrate there seized the box, and taking it into his yamên asked the dwarf whence he came. At first he dared not reply, but on being pressed told the magistrate everything. He said he belonged to a respectable family, and that once when returning home from school he was stupified by the magician, who gave him some drug which made his limbs shrink, and then took him about to exhibit to people. The magistrate was very angry and had the magician beheaded, himself taking charge of the dwarf. He was subsequently very anxious to get him cured, but unable to obtain the proper prescription.[193]

FOOTNOTE:

[193] The Cantonese believe the following to be the usual process:--“Young children are bought or stolen at a tender age and placed in a _ch‘ing_, or vase with a narrow neck, and having in this case a moveable bottom. In this receptacle the unfortunate little wretches are kept for years in a sitting posture, their heads outside, being all the while carefully tended and fed.... When the child has reached the age of twenty or over, he or she is taken away to some distant place and ‘discovered’ in the woods as a wild man or woman.”--_China Mail_, 15th May, 1878.