Imperial Valley Press

'QUEER PEOPLE MOURN LOSS OF 'WHAT-IS-IT?''

NEW YORK, April 27. The fat lady, the thin man, the sword swallower and the snake charmer; Warren Mite, the midget; Chico, the Bushman, and Jim Carver, the Texas giant joined in sorrow mourning the passing of "Zip, the What-Is-It."

Zip died at a hospital here late Monday after a cancer of some 63 years, probably the most famous of all freaks. His real name was William Henry Johnson but P. T. Barnum, in the early days of his career, when his protruding mouth and his head topped with tuft of hair made him a queer looking object, named him "Zip."

Barnum took him on his museum at Broadway and Ann streets, New York, and there thousands paid their last respects to look upon him.

As there was Charles Dickens' midget, Tom Thumb, and the like was completed. Thereafter William Henry Johnson was heralded as Zip the "What is it," and the name probably may more persons in this country who have paid money to see the What-Is-It have not seen Barnum's other freaks but all know about one thing—him—every minute.

Zip was the keystone—or at least one of the important keystones of Barnum's shows, and fortune.

In his own self, he always lived in retirement. He had a farm at Bordentown, N. J., which was his home, but most of his years he spent wandering the country over with the P. T. Barnum show.

Two years ago, while showing at Madison Square Garden, he fell ill of pneumonia. Charles Ringling, one of the circus men, ordered no expense be spared in caring for the midget. For a time it seemed certain his death was but a temporary illness.

But Saturday he suffered a relapse and death came in a matter of hours.

Wednesday was the funeral service, the Rev. Dr. William Wylie officiating, and by it at Boundbrook he will be buried, with the queer people, of whom he was one, his pallbearers.