Gold Hill Daily News

DISGUSTING WEDDING IN LONDON.
Mr. Ringling of the Aztec Children—Matrimonial Bid adieu—Description of the
[From the London Telegraph, January 8.]

The pair of Mexican cretins exhibited in London some years ago as brother and sister, made their appearance yesterday as man and wife. The speculation has certainly been well planned, and if the forthcoming show of two very remarkable specimens of humanity be not highly profitable to the proprietor of the happy couple, it will not be from any parsimonious management of the matrimonial puff. It was in 1849, we believe, that an American showman, calling himself Raymond, introduced these curious dwarfs to the public of New York. They were, if not sold, conveyed in some way or other to a cleverer showman, who brought them to England in 1852 or 1853, and who contrived to set our ethnological and anthropological societies cracking whole bushels of ethnological and anthropological nuts. The new owner of the dusky little strangers looked to right and to left, especially to left, and found, in good time, as assistant showman, a clever literary cynic, who struck a bargain mutually advantageous, and got up a very pretty little story about the "Aztecs," as he determined to call them. An eminent map-publisher was applied to for information with regard to any untrodden latitude and longitude of Central America. He pointed out the wildest tract of unexplored country on the Western continent, and was then requested to plan a mystical city in the midst of thereof. This he did, and the city was called "Iximaya."

All the rest was tolerably plain sailing.

The announcement that these strange little beings were to be joined together in holy matrimony must have burst very discordantly on the ears of people who remember their first appearance on a long, baize-covered platform or table in the large room at Hanover Square. It is some satisfaction to know that Professor Owen has given an opinion adverse to the original hypothesis of their close consanguinity. Maximo Valdez Nunez and his bride, Bartola Valesquez, are very much alike—especially Maximo—but they are not the children of one father and one mother. As a pair of ponies may be exceedingly well matched from two different paddocks, so "this man and this woman" makes a remarkably good pair of grotesque Indian figures, molded in brown human clay.

The first story of their discovery, in attitude of idols, squatted on the altars of Iximaya, and of the circumstances tending to prove that they were brother and sister, is now abandoned, with as much reason as convenience.

Their wedding breakfast yesterday in Willis' rooms, followed a ceremony in the registrar's office, as we are informed, and the señor and señora took their seats as bridegroom and bride. We have intimated that no cost was spared on this happy occasion. The repast was at all points complete—a marriage feast "regardless of expense." There were it is true less than half the number of guests for whom covers had been laid; but it is consolatory to add that the company included as many ladies as gentlemen.

All were seated and all rose when the interesting couple entered the room, arm in arm, and walked with a tolerably firm step to the places reserved for them at the top table. The bridegroom wore evening dress, with a white waistcoat, a red camellia in his buttonhole, and the strip of crimson ribbon which denotes a claim to some foreign order—never mind what: His very small head looked smaller for the mass of frizzly black hair which enveloped it like a cloud. He had a stooping, jerky gait, and so had his bride, though not in so noticeable a degree. She wore white satin, cut low, and liberally adorned with brilliants; a wreath of orange blossoms; and a lace veil, which caused her a great deal of trouble. Maximo and Bartola have now, it may be presumed, grown to their full stature, which is that of childhood. They are still slim of figure, but not by any means so extremely attenuated as they were when they first appeared in public. Indeed, the lady's form presents the appearance of mature womanhood. Her age is said to be twenty-three and that of her husband thirty. Their heads and faces differ curiously from those of stunted persons in common. The facial angle is about equal to that of a hawk. They have a fair allowance of cerebellum, but as little cerebrum as would hold the smallest morsel of intelligent brain. Hence the almost total want of memory the absence of ideas, and the incapacity for applying, or even learning to articulate words. The female is, in this respect, rather superior to the male; as, indeed, she is in physical development. The joints of her fingers are dactyllic, though a little inclined two into one, as would of course be the sign of a low organization; but this sign is absolute in the little fingers of the male, which are simple pendees, or one-jointed members.

It is an odd sort of a thing to hear the speeches at a wedding breakfast turn on scientific questions suggested by the physical peculiarities of the bride and bridegroom; to see a medical gentleman rise to propose their healths, and to hear him speak of "the not uninteresting couple" in learned terms, with occasional references to "Humboldt, the great cosmogonist." The physician who spoke this funny compound of an epithalamium and a lecture on the anthropology was Dr. Brewer. He said that the ladies and gentlemen who had done the young people honor of accepting their invitation were more likely to arrive at a conclusion on the subject of marriage than the most learned college of savants who proceeded on dry physiology only. He bore emphatic testimony to the affectionate treatment which the young couple had received from Mr. Morris, their showman, who had "as much love for them, as if they were two feeble children of his own."

Dr. Brewer was quite frank in speaking of the bride and bridegroom as "children," but he explained that their affection was the affection of devoted lovers, and spoke of the pain and separation caused the gentleman. As for the lady, he said that her attendants could tell many things which would go to prove her "reticence and self-control," and, in fact, her decided possession of "something very like modesty." When the doctor had made an end of his speech, Mr. Morris complimented him—from a ready written paper—on the scientific "guardedness" which had characterized his remarks.

After Mr. Morris came Lord William Lennox, with a speech principally about the union of America and England, as if this were somehow a part of the business in hand. The bridegroom was to have made a speech at table, but he could not be brought up to time; and it was only at a later period, over the coffee, that he burst into a jabbering anti-climax of nuptial oratory. It was observable at table that although he is an inch or two taller than his bride, he sat much lower than she. If a sumptuous elegance can bespeak for any espousal the recognition of propriety, this marriage may be regarded as one of the properest on record. No better breakfast ever ushered in the wedded happiness of a pair of young people in high life. The bride's costly trousseau was from Howell & James'. The matrimonial outfit of Senora Nunez is stated to have cost £2,000; and even this handsome total must have been exclusive of the ornaments she carried about her person.