Dear Sir, - I have recently returned from a long tour in the united States, but I am afraid I haven't anything particularly new to report of my travels this time. I visited, among other places, the big Chicago exhibition, and while there, of course, paid as visit to several side shows included in the entertainment.
I was disappointed to find only one representative of the limbless beauty cult: and her, Martha Morris, I had seen several times before. Miss Morris is billed as an "Armless wonder," and is a quite pretty brunette with perfect, unblemished shoulders that reveal not a single trace of either arms or stumps. She is, too, to all intents and purposes, legless, as her tiny pretty feet are attached practically to her hips.
She uses her feet and toes as hands and fingers, and the interesting thing is that she cannot walk, and never has done, her feet have always been used as hands. She has been before the American public for at least ten years, to my knowledge, and has never travelled anywhere else.
I did not go to Coney Island this year, as I was nowhere near New York most of my stay, except, of course, for passing through it. There is, however, I learnt, another armless girl there, billed as "Thelma" who is probably somebody who I have seen under another name.
I mention her because there was an interesting item in the newspapers in connection with her show. Among her visitors one day was a young Italian millionaire and his newly married bride, both in the States on their honeymoon.
To "Thelma's" surprise the pretty bride "shook hands" with one of her feet and thus revealed the intriguing fact that she also was armless! She had been an armless acrobat in an Italian circus, and, as the report went, "had so captivated the young millionaire with her performance that he had wooed and married her."
An other item of news in the paper revealed an interesting fact. You may remember that some years ago a member of the famous Ziegfeld Follies, Phyllida Corkran, while taking part in a wild motor party, was involved in a crash which resulted in severe injuries to both her legs. Ultimately her right leg was amputated near the hip, and she had, of course, to retire from the stage. She married shortly afterwards, and nothing was heard of her,
I was therefore very interested to see in one of the papers one day a photograph of a very pretty woman in a wheel-chair, with a lovely baby in her lap. Above the photo was the caption "Beautiful legless ex-Folly girl now a happy mother."
It was quite plain from the photograph that Phyllida had now no legs at all, and in a brief resume of her story below the photograph it was revealed that she had had her remaining leg amputated a few months after her marriage. However, she looked, as the caption described her, a very "happy mother."
I had, however, one interesting experience of my own, though I was not then in a side-show or on the look-out for examples of limbless beauty. I happened to be in a pleasant suburb of Detroit, and was waiting at a car stop one afternoon. I had seen the lady and her pretty daughter standing near, but it was only when the woman moved that I suddenly became interested in the girl.
The left sleeve of her pretty frock, which was the nearest to me, and which was only a short affair dropping only a few inches below the shoulder, was, I noted, empty. But as she was rather full-busted, I wasn't sure whether or not her arm was inside the frock, bound up because of some injury. I slowly moved towards the pair and encircled them.
I satisfied myself at once that it was the girl's nicely rounded bust that was outlined on the frock and that her left arm was definitely absent. But what was my astonishment, when, as I passed I saw that the right sleeve was also empty!
The girl was unmistakably entirely armless; and I had certainly never encountered such a case in the public streets during the whole of my travels.
I mentioned this extraordinary encounter to a local friend that evening. He knew the girl quite well. She was in fact known to everybody in the district. She had been born without arms, but apparently her parents, relatives and friends had to thought it best not to make a fuss about the matter or to let the girl think she was very different from other girls.
She attended the local high school with all the other normally formed girls. She used her toes instead of fingers, and now the thing had become so familiar that none of her school friends thought it was extraordinary. She played games, moved about the streets sometimes unaccompanied, and lived a happy cheerful life, just as any other schoolgirl.
They do such things in America, and I think it a good thing. Here we segregate such children, and they grow up realising that they are not as other people, always sensitive about their deformities and very often unhappy because of the way they have been brought up.
However, I have run at a terrific length. I hope you'll forgive me.
With all best wishes.
Wallace Stort