DWARF, a human being much below the ordinary size of man. Dwarfs are described by several ancient classical writers. Herodotus gives an account of a race of dwarfs living in Libya and the Syrtes, to which. Aristotle and Pliny also refer. Henry M. Stanley, in his journey across Africa in 1888, came on a dwarf ish race which he thought might be descended from that mentioned by Herodotus. Philetas of Cos, distinguished about 330 s.c. as a poet and grammarian, was jocularly said to have carried weights to prevent his being blown away. He was preceptdr to Ptolemy Philadelphus. Julia, niece of Augustus, had a dwarf named Coropas, two feet and a hand's breadth high; and An dromeda, a freemaid of Julia's, was of the same height. The Negrilloes,. occupying a belt six degrees wide in equatorial Africa the smallest known race, are supposed to have a com mon ancestry with the Negritoes of Asia and Melanesia. The Akkas, a , diminu tive race, inhabit the country west of Lake Nyanza. In 1895 a dwarf tribe was discovered on the east side of the Upper Nile. This is regalsied as the most primitive race on earth, having neither laws nor rules of conduct and destitute not only of clothing but of weapons of offense and defense. In Luzon, in the Philippines, the /Etas, a pigmy race, has been discovered. Dwarfing, in races of normal size, is always a sign of stunted development and may be produced by maiming or malnutrition, by disease of the thyroid glands, rickets or spinal tuberculosis. Many dwarfs, however, are well formed in feature and physique and perfectly normal. They are as a general rule apt in intellect, but sensitive, quick-tempered and revengeful. Among dwarfs celebrated in history mention may be made of Jeffery Hud son, page to the first Duke of Buckingham. At nine years of age he was only 18 inches high. When Charles I and his queen were the guests of Buckingham, Hudson was brought to table in a pie, out of which he stepped and he was adopted by Queen Henrietta Marie.
He became a captain of horse in the Civil War, and figured in two duels, one with a turkey cock and the other with one Crofts, whom, firing from horseback that he might be on a level with his antagonist, he shot dead. The best known of modern dwarfs was Charles S. Stratton, or, as he was popularly called, "Tom Thumb," who was 31 inches high at the age of 25. He was born in Bridgeport, Conn., and traveled extensively abroad and at home under the management of P. T. Barnum. Wherever he went he attracted great attention even from such personages as Queen Victoria and Napo leon III. Another modern dwarf was Francis Flynn, "Gen. Mite," who was 21 inches in height at 16 years.
In Scandinavian mythology dwarfs (Dyer gar) are inhabitants of the interior of the earth and especially of large isolated rocks. They were imagined to be dark in aspect like the caverns in which they dwelt and were often styled "dark elves." A dwarf was set by the gods at the corner of each of the four quarters of the earth to bear up the sky; and they were named East, West, North and South. All the dwarfs were esteemed great artists in working metals and weapons of marvelous properties were said to be produced from their subterra nean workshops. Like the Jotuns, they could not endure the sunlight and if its rays touched them they were turned into stone. If a man met a dwarf away from his rock and could throw steel between him and it, it was believed that thereby his habitation was closed up and that any thing in his power could be extorted from him. In the old Norse, echo is called the "dwarf language," probably because it was thought to be produced by the dwarfs within mountains imitating the sounds which they heard without.