THE "AZTEC LILLIPUTIANS."
We have alluded to the exclamation, "How like D******* !" made by a distinguished visitor to the two curiosities exhibited at the Hanover Square Rooms under the designation of "Aztec Lilliputians." But there is an actual American mystery connected with them, as well as the sug- gestion by analogy of the Asian mystery. They are said to come from a city of Central America first made known in Stephens's Travels from the report of a Spanish priest, and since visited by three civilized explorers. Of these, two are affirmed by the survivor, Scher Velasquez, to have been murdered ; while be himself got the children from a temple of the Indian worship, where they and their likes, of whom there exist some hundreds, are revered and almost deified as being the descendants of the ancient Aztecs. They are said to be kept by the priests as objects of this wor- ship, secluded from all external communication, and even left without any language. They are some thirty-three inches in height. The boy is reported about seventeen, the girl about eleven years of age ; but we observe that Professor Owen estimates them at from ten to twelve, and from seven to nine, respectively. The idiotic sprightliness of their faces, their bard-looking wooden limbs, screeching, clawing, and tottering, make them, to our taste, anything but engaging objects of contemplation —full of interest and curiosity as they doubtless are in an ethnological point of view. Not that they are disgusting in aspect or habits, or that they fail to receive caresses from the visitors ; but animated dolls or semi- rational lizards would appear to us as capable of exciting any clear human sympathy. Among our Letters this week, the reader will find one from Mr. W. B. Adams, which may throw some further light on the subject.
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