(3 of 4)
Also why is it most midgets seem to be continental Europeans by birth? Are both my generalizations wrong? And my further observation is that freakish giants also tend to have squeaky voices; that small fully matured normal men frequently have deep bass voices.
CAMERON M. PLUMMER
Las Vegas, Nev.
Medicine has neglected the study of dwarfism. Stature of four feet has become conventional demarkation between normal and little people. Midgets are well-proportioned dwarfs. True dwarfs have big heads, shoulders, chests and buttocks, short extremities. Causes of dwarfism include heredity, disease of the thyroid, pituitary or kidneys, disturbances in the changing of cartilage into bone, or essential infantilism. If Europe produces more dwarfs (and midgets) than the U. S., the explanation may be with Europe's greater population (550,000,000 to 122,775,000 which statistically allows for more freak births. Dysfunction of glands similarly causes gigantism, which seems to be less common than dwarfism. Giants and dwarfs are as a rule sterile. Henrietta Maria, queen to King Charles I of England was curious about the fertility of her dwarfs, ordered her pet, Richard Gibson to marry another pet, Anne. The Gibsons together measured 7 ft. 2 in. They had nine children, of whom five lived. The five attained normal stature. Queen Catherine de Medici in a spirit of scientific research forced all her court dwarfs to mate. All were barren.—ED.
Pig Club
Sirs:
TIME isn't so smart after all. Richard Whitney wears a little pig on his watch chain (TIME, April 25)— not because he is a fancier of fine hogs — though he may be—but because he is a member of Harvard's famous Porcellian Club. Members of the seven "final" clubs at Harvard wear such things—an owl for the Owl Club, a fox for the Fox Club, a fly for the Fly Club, a bull for the A.D. Club and so on.
L.P. DODGE
New York City
Porcellian ("Pork") Club, oldest (1790) of Harvard's "finals," was founded by undergraduates who sat around talking literature and eating roast pig (porcellus). Its reputation springs from the wealth and social swank of its membership which has included Holmeses, Lowells, Belmonts, Adamses, Roosevelts, Bonapartes, Carrolls, Lodges. Its club house on Massachusets Avenue overlooks the Yard. Porcellian's favorite beverage was Golden Gate, a concoction of equal parts of gin and beer. At club dinners all members must be primed to sing solo.—ED.
Tolerance in the Alps
Sirs:
For twelve years now I have lived in France. Over here events of great importance have followed each other fast. Pick your Paris newspapers as you will, run the whole gamut of varying political opinion, and still you will find it nigh impossible to form a true idea of what is happening.
Some months ago I became a perpetual subscriber to TIME. Every week now I have a clear, curt, colorful review not only of events in America but also of those in Europe; and the tangle of information and opinion of the European press is drawn into a concise and logical sequence of facts.