Let us agree, arbitrarily, that people of from six to seven feet in height are only very tall men, but that those who exceed the seven-foot mark may fairly be called giants. During the last two hundred years there have been over a hundred men and women, figuring in the public eye, who have exceeded seven feet. Probably twenty-five of these have had a height of eight feet or over. In spite of statements in advertisements and handbills and newspapers, even in encyclopædias, there does not seem to have been any human being measured by scientific methods who reached nine feet.
To be sure, one may read in the histories and biographies that the Roman Emperors Maximinus and Jovianus, and Charlemagne, and Emperor Maximilian of Germany were eight-and-a-half or nine feet. But one cannot measure even live Emperors, unfortunately, much less long dead ones. Many a traveller asserted that he had seen with his own eyes scores of Patagonian savages ranging from nine to eleven feet; yet as soon as careful measurements were made these dwindled to a maximum of something under seven. And the vast number of “giants' bones” dug up from time to time, indicating men of nine feet and upward, have practically all been shown to be those of great animals.
One of the most notable characteristics about the giant is a certain shrinking tendency before the camera and the tape. In the last twenty years or so a group of alert savants, especially in France, have been gathering authoritative biological observations upon all the subjects possible; and it is wise to recall that only such exact scientific records can be relied on.
For, apart from pride, there is a vast deal of money involved in a few extra inches for the show giant. For instance, Antoine Hugo, announced as the tallest man, died in 1917 after having made quite a fortune in America; and it was stated that a “freak” promoter would pay a premium of $400 an inch, for any one who could show a greater stature than Hugo! That is to say, he would give nearly $3000 for a nine-foot giant—besides paying the giant himself something like $1500 to $2000 a week. Whereas Hugo’s brother, who was only a couple of inches shorter than he, was not in demand in the United States, which calls for only “champions” in the freak class.
Apparently the tallest man on record was Machnow, a Russian, who was born at Witebsk about 1882, was exhibited in London in 1905, in the United States, Germany, Holland, and elsewhere, and died around the age of thirty.
None of his family was exceptionally tall, and he himself was a normal child up to the age of four. Then he began to grow very rapidly, not eating a great deal, but sometimes sleeping for twenty-four hours at a time. At fifteen he was about five feet two; at twenty-two, according to Professor Luschau and Lissauer he was seven feet and ten inches. When he appeared in London next year, he was credited with nine feet three inches, and the most conservative of British encyclopædias accepts this figure. In the show world he was universally taken as the “champion,” with a figure of eight feet seven inches. It seems beyond question that he was over eight and a half and under nine feet; his weight was given as 360 pounds.
The champion in 1920 was George Auger, credited with eight feet four inches, who is an American and affects frontier costume. Then there was the famous smiling Chinaman, Chang, who exhibited his eight feet or so to nearly the whole world for a long period beginning about the end of the American Civil War.
A generation back there were in the eight-foot class the Austrian Winkelmeier; Paul Marie Elizabeth Wehde, born at Ben-Rendorf in Thuringia, who was called “The Queen of the Amazons” and was handsome enough to appear with success at the London Alhambra in a review called “Babil and Bijou”; Ben Hicks, “the Denver Steeple”; and, a little smaller, Captain Martin Van Buren Bates of Kentucky, who married in London in 1871 Miss Anna Swan, of Nova Scotia, who was three inches taller than himself—they were celebrated as the tallest bride and groom in the world—scoring fourteen feet eight inches between them, while the captain’s weight of 450 pounds made him a notable figure.
Public curiosity regarding the very tall men is by no means modern. Fifteen hundred years ago a poor giant in Rome was almost killed by the press of people crowding about to get a sight of him; but there was a special outbreak of such prodigies during the 18th century, particularly in England.[308:1] Three of the most celebrated of these were from Ireland.
[308:1] A century earlier came “Long Meg of Westminster,” heroine of most extraordinary and comical exploits in one of the old ballads.
First came Cornelius MacGrath, born near the silver mines in Tipperary in 1736. Neither his parents nor their other children were remarkable in size; but when Cornelius visited Cork at the age of sixteen, a regular mob followed him through the streets, since he towered already head and shoulders above other men.
It appeared that the year before Cornelius was much troubled with pains in his limbs; and thinking them rheumatic he would bathe in salt water for a cure; but they were “growing pains” of a rare sort, for during that year he shot up some eighteen inches.
Since this rapid growth caused him partially to lose the use of his limbs, Dr. Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, took the youngster into his house for a month or more, and had him treated so successfully that he regained his powers.
“His hand was then as large as a middling-sized shoulder of mutton, which joint he could cover with that member. The last of his shoes, which he carried about with him, measured fifteen inches in length.”
This charity of the worthy Bishop was ill rewarded. There grew up a legend (which got into the newspapers and into Watkinson’s “Philosophical Survey of Ireland”) that Bishop Berkeley, from an inhuman scientific desire to experiment in giant-making, had taken a poor orphan, and by some mysterious course of feeding, had caused him to shoot up to the height of seven feet.
MacGrath kept on growing until at the age of thirty he measured seven feet eight inches; and he created a sensation in London, Paris and other European capitals, distracting attention from Cajanus, the great Swede, who was taller but not so well proportioned. His body was finally stolen by medical students of Trinity College, on the day on which he was to have been “waked.”
“This is said to have been the origin of the feud between the students and the coal-porters of Dublin, which has continued to this day (1868).” He was a great friend of the students, and he used to raise by the collar of his coat and hold out at arm’s length, for a long time, a small-sized student named Hare, who was father of the late Dr. Hare, F.T.C.D. Mr. Hare one day ran between MacGrath’s legs, and the giant strained himself in recovering his balance, from which accident he failed in health, and ultimately died. His skeleton is preserved at Trinity College.
Next there came a Cork man, James MacDonald, who was first exhibited, served as a grenadier for thirty years, then became a day laborer, and died, according to the Annual Register for 1760 at the age of 117! (which is nearly three times the average of giants, either modern or in those—for them—unwholesome days of chivalry).
A little later Charles Byrne, who called himself O’Brien, eclipsed both these notables. He came to London in 1782, as witness this announcement:
“Irish Giant. To be seen this, and every day this week, in his large elegant room, at the cane-shop, next door to late Cox’s Museum, Spring Garden, Mr. Byrne, the surprising Irish Giant, who is allowed to be the tallest man in the world; his height is eight feet two inches, and in full proportion accordingly; only 21 years of age. His stay will not be long in London, as he proposes shortly to visit the Continent. The nobility and gentry are requested to take notice, there was a man showed himself for some time past at the top of the Haymarket, and Piccadilly, who advertised and endeavored to impose himself upon the public for the Irish Giant; Mr. Byrne begs leave to assure them it was an imposition, as he is the only Irish Giant, and never was in this metropolis before Thursday the 11th inst. Hours of admittance every day, Sundays excepted, from 11 till 3, and from 5 till 8, at half-a-crown each person.”
Poor Patrick had a rather unhappy time of it, in spite of the furore attending his appearance during the short year when he stood “as the most extraordinary production of the human species ever beheld since the days of Goliath.”
He got to drinking; and visiting the Black Horse Tavern one night was robbed of all the fruits of his year’s success—which he carried in two banknotes, one for £700, one for £70.
Then he became so fearful that the surgeons would get his body for dissection that he begged his remains should be thrown into the sea. The London newspapers, during the summer of the consummation of American Independence, were agog with wild tales of the plots to secure the giant’s body after death.
Says one: “The whole tribe of surgeons put in a claim for the poor departed Irish Giant, and surrounded his house just as Greenland harpooners would an enormous whale. One of them has gone so far as to have a niche made for himself in the giant’s coffin, in order to his being ready at hand on ‘the witching time of night, when churchyards yawn.'”
Another tale was that a rival party had equipped itself with diving-bells to salvage the prodigy from the river, where it was to be sunk at the Downs in twenty fathoms of water. A third said the undertakers had been offered a bribe of 800 guineas.
Whatever the facts, the huge skeleton was for a century a treasured possession of the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, in London.
Spurred on by Byrne’s reception, Patrick Cotter, of Kinsale, appeared presently. He also took the name of O’Brien and admitted himself to be a descendant of Brian Boru. He soon eclipsed all rival pretenders, and in the twenty years before his death accumulated a competence. Many were the stories told of him.
He used to travel in a carriage built especially for him, with a sort of well in the floor to hold his legs. One evening the carriage was stopped by a highwayman. As Cotter slowly rose to look out, the robber saw this huge figure rising apparently endlessly, and, struck with panic, he dropped his pistol, clapped spurs to his horse and galloped away.
Then he liked to do such things as startle the watchmen by reaching up to a street lamp and taking off the cover to light his pipe; or to wager £10 that he would kiss a pretty girl at an upstairs window as he walked past.
Some half a century back a gentleman wrote to one of the magazines that he possessed the giant’s gold watch, which weighed a pound, and had his name engraved in it, and was still in good running order.
Rather more interesting than these show giants were the corps of gigantic guards, such as those maintained for half a century at Potsdam by the Prussian kings. (Even James I had a door-keeper, Walter Parsons, about seven-and-a-half feet tall; and Cromwell boasted another, Daniel, of the same size, who became insane from religious ecstasy.) These huge soldiers were gathered with great care, from all countries, the tallest being seven feet six inches; and since they were well built athletic men they made a most impressive appearance.
King Frederick William, says Voltaire, “armed with a huge sergeant’s cane, marched forth every day to review his regiment of giants. These giants were his greatest delight, and the things for which he went to the heaviest expense.
“The men who stood in the first rank of this regiment were none of them less than seven feet high, and he sent to purchase them from the farthest parts of Europe to the borders of Asia. I have seen some of them since his death. The king, his son, who loved handsome, not gigantic men, had given those I saw to the queen, his wife, to serve in quality of Heiduques. I remember that they accompanied the old state coach which preceded the Marquis de Beauvau, who came to compliment the king, in the month of November, 1740. The late king, Frederick William, who had formerly sold all the magnificent furniture left by his father, never could find a purchaser for that enormous engilded coach. The Heiduques, who walked on each side to support it in case it should fall, shook hands with each other over the roof.”
A pleasant exception in character was one Antony Payne of Cornwall, a region always famous for tall men. (In fact the learned author of a “History of Oxfordshire” in 1676 was strongly of the opinion that a huge Cornish skeleton discovered in his time was that of the famous Arabian giant celebrated by Pliny, Gabbara, and that he had doubtless been brought to Britain by the Emperor Claudius.)
Tony Payne was reputed to measure four inches over seven feet. He was a faithful follower of the Stowe family, as noted for intelligence, vigor and good humor as for size, and fought with distinction in the royal army during the Great Rebellion; after the Restoration Charles II had his portrait painted by Kneller. One Christmas Eve he sent a boy with a donkey to bring in wood from the forest; going out after a while to look for him, he found the youth loitering along, whereupon Payne picked up the loaded donkey and carried it back to the castle. He lived to an old age and left behind him a reputation for spirit, ability and loyalty to his ideals which seems rare enough among physical prodigies.
Many historical figures have been at least on the border line of gianthood: William of Scotland, Edward III, Godefroy of Bouillon, Philip the Long, Fairfax, Baron Barford, Kléber, Rochester, Charles II’s favorite, Gall, Brillat-Savarin, Benjamin Constant, the painter David, and others were men of quite extraordinary stature—just how tall we cannot, unfortunately, find out.
But the facts seem to be that at any one time one could come pretty near counting on one’s fingers all the people in the world who really measured over eight feet in height.