Dear Sir, - I now send the next article in the series, which I hope I shall be lucky enough to see in the November special issue. This, I take it, will be the Christmas Number. I had hoped to have written, with your permission, of course, a special story for this issue, but I am afraid I could not get it finished in time, so I trust the article I now send will serve.
I wonder if you would permit me to make a special plea in connection with the article I enclose. In it "Marcel" describes, among other things, how Lulu, the girl featured in the article, managed to give the impression that she was armless by the use of a specially designed corset. I want to assure you that it was a perfectly feasible business, and was actually worked with complete success for nearly twenty years by a well-known side-show exhibit.
There died in America about ten years ago a woman named Rose Wasilesky, who had appeared all over the States as an "Armless Wonder." She had retired from the show world about ten or fifteen years earlier.
Actually she had a perfect pair of arms; and each day, before going on show, she was laced into a specially made corset very much in the way described by "Marcel" in the present article. The illusion of armlessness was so perfect that nobody outside the world of the shows ever suspected that she had arms.
Her imposture arouse in a curious way. She was born in the show business, her father being a manager of freak shows. Among his exhibits was a genuine armless girl for whom Rose, as a child, formed a very strong attachment, and with whom she travelled for many years. The armless girl taught Rose to use her toes; and Rose, proving a very apt pupil, became almost as expert as the girl herself.
Some years later, after the death of her father, Rose was thrown upon her own resources and, looking round for a means of livelihood, suddenly thought of the brilliant idea of herself giving an "armless wonder" show.
A showman, expert in the game of fooling the public, devised the special corset she wore beneath her fancy show costumes, and from that time she appeared successfully as an armless wonder, doing all the recognised tricks with her legs and toes so cleverly that no spectator could possibly have suspected that she was not genuinely armless.
This case is quite authentic, and I have heard rumours of others. Lon Chaney, the late film star, also wore a specially built corset when he appeared as the armless wonder of travelling shows in one of his films. His appearance was absolutely natural, and he did not look particularly bulky about the body either.
I hope therefore that Lulu's version of the trick may be allowed to remain as an example of an odd and very out of the ordinary "stunt" founded on actual fact. Perhaps, too, Miss Stanton might choose one of her illustrations from this part.
I was glad to see, besides my own, two other letters dealing with limbless beauty in the September issue.
"Ruth", the writer of the first, I noted with interest, wrote from South Africa, showing how far afield "London Life" circulates, and how widespread is the interest in this particular topic. Besides the many letters you have had from readers in England, you have received communications on the subject from America, India, Australia, Ceylon and South Africa.
I was particularly interest in the informative and well-written letter signed "Barnum Junior." I never saw the "limbless Lord" he mentions, though "Randion," the Indian armless and legless man, who has been a prominent side-show exhibit in America for many years, and whom "Barnum Junior," is sure to know, is an example of a similar anomaly. He, too, is just a trunk, and can do miraculous things with his lips and teeth.
I have, however, the pleasantest memories of the lady he calls "La Renee de Vallee." I saw her in England only a few months before the war, when she was billed "Mdlle. Vallee, the Parisian Armless Beauty."
She was, as your correspondent says, really a Belgian, being a native of Ghent. She was indeed a beautiful girl, then about twenty, very dark and distinguished looking, with, I thought, a rather sad expression, though she could be very vivacious when in the mood.
Completely armless from the shoulders though she was, she had a most perfect figure, with the most beautifully modelled shoulders I have ever seen on an armless girl. It really would have been an insult to call her armlessness a deformity.
Certainly, familiar limbs were missing, but there was nothing in the least displeasing about the bereft shoulders - very much the most opposite, in fact. And not even the most normally minded individual could have been blind to the shapely perfection, of the twin, rounded shoulder ends, and denied their obvious beauty
Her legs, too, were slender and shapely; and her feet, with their long, amazingly supple and prehensile and, of course, beautifully kept toes, were also slim and dainty.
A photograph I had of Mdlle. Vallee, showing her in the short velvet knickers, she ware while on show, holding a cup of tea near her lips with her toes, while she smiled delightfully out of the picture, was lost, along with many others of a similar type, during the war.
But you may recall a photograph of her playing the piano with her toes, was published in your paper a few years ago, illustrating, along with other photographs of other limbless celebrities, an article by one of your contributors (not myself) on limbless show-people. If you still possess the photograph, its reproduction might be of interest to readers.
I hope that "Barnum Junior" will write again as I have no doubt he has by no means exhausted his store of information about the many limbless wonders he has met.
Again offering you my most grateful thanks and my best wishes for the continued success of the paper,
Yours sincerely,
Wallace Stort