TINY TOWNSMEN.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2740, 19 February 1910, Page 1 (Supplement)

TINY TOWNSMEN.

Sixty of the smallest- people in the world arrived in London on the morning of Ist December. They had come from France, after a rough passage-, and went to “Tiny Town,” which has been built- for them at the Olympia. They seemed like a- crowd of children who had been stricken by premature old age, said ond reporter. Some ex these little faces were those of old men and women, whose eyes had looked out upon many years of life —-and wise were wrinkled and worn with care. City men on their way to oif lets might- have thought for one wild moment that some frightful calamity had happened, putting old heads upon the young shoulders of England’s children. Could it be the destruction of the Budget that- had blighted the youth of the< nation ?

But no; these tiny folk, who spoke in squeaky voices, and carried themselves with the indifference of muchtravelled people, were of the tribe cf Tom Tlimilb, and bad been collected from liianv travelling circuses and sideshows in Europe to provide an extraordinary entertainment- at Olympia, where they will dive in small houses, drive in miniature coaches, oinnibussea, and handsome cabs, and live in a little world of Lilliput-. The Gulliver of this Lilliput town is a giant over 7ft high, who yesterday stood among tike little people in silent solemnity while they babbled in many different tongues—French, German, Italian, Dutch, and English. The hero of Tiny Town is a vour.g gentleman, aged twenty-one last ‘birthday. and just- over 2ft high. He. is a German named Ludovie Huiiher. but so far he has been exempt from service in the German army. He is the most amazing little man" in the world To see linn trotting along hv the side of an ordinary man, to watch him eating a lug dinner with a hearty appetite and grasping with baby hands a knife and fork three times too big for him, to hear him talking German with fßio air of a gallant fellow who knows his way about the world, fills one with a sense of comical amusement.