e, as among the "most wonderful
specimens of humanity." We assent to the following paragraph by Mr.
Horace Greeley, whose testimony agrees with the common impressions they
have produced:

"I hate monstrosities, however remarkable, and am rather
repelled than attracted by the idea of their truthfulness.
Assuming that there is a propensity in human nature--an
'organ,' as the phrenologists would phrase it--that finds
gratification in the inspection and scrutiny of Joice Heths,
Woolly Horses, and six-legged Swine, I would rather have it
gratified by fabricated and factitious than by natural and
veritable productions, and would rather not share in the
process from which that gratification is extracted. There is a
superabundance of ugliness and deformity which one is obliged
to see, without running after and nosing any out. It was,
therefore, with some reluctance that I obeyed a polite
invitation to visit the Aztec children, and ratify or dispute
the commendations hitherto bestowed on them, in these columns
and elsewhere. I did not expect to find ogres nor any thing
hideous, but, among all similar exhibitions, remembering with
pleasure only Tom Thumb, I could not hope to find gratification
in the sight of two dwarf Indians. But I was disappointed.
These children are simply abridgements or pocket editions of
Humanity--bright-eyed, delicate-featured, olive-complexioned
little elves, with dark, straight, glossy hair,
well-proportioned heads, and animated, pleasing countenances.
That their ages are honestly given, and that the boy weighs
just about as many pounds as he is years old (twenty), while
the girl is about half his age and three pounds lighter, I see
no reason at all for doubting. That they are human beings,
though of a low grade morally and intellectually, as well as
diminutive physically, there can be no doubt; and they are not
freaks of Nature, but specimens of a dwindled, minnikin race,
who almost realize in bodily form our ideas of the 'brownies,'
'bogles,' and other fanciful creations of a more superstitious
age. Their heads, unlike those of dwarfs, are small and not
ill-looking, but with very low foreheads and a general
conformation strongly confirmatory of certain fundamental
assertions of Phrenology. Idiotic they are not; but their