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