Siamese twins

“ Oh, I'll be 'Eat-'em-alive' and Miss Annie will have to be the lion tamer. They are always beautiful blondes. Dum and Dee of course will be the Siamese Twins disconnected for the convenience of travel. ”

“ Even twins frequently differ considerably from each other, and it is said that the last years of the lives of the Siamese twins were sadly marred by their opposing views as to the rights and wrongs of the American Civil War! ”

“ Dee is the most wonderfullest person in the world."
Mrs. Green smiled and hugged the enthusiastic Dum.
"Yes, I know what a sister can be. My sister, Mildred, is not my twin in reality, but the Siamese twins cannot be closer than we are in spirit. I hardly ever see her now, either, as she lives in the northwest and I am at Wellington all winter and in Kentucky in the summer. Fortunately, love can work by wireless at any distance, so absence does not affect our affection for each other." ”

“ They were married in April, 1843, and raised large families; Chang having had ten, and Eng twelve children. Chang had three boys and seven girls; Eng had seven boys and five girls. These were in all respects average children, excepting two, a boy and girl of Chang’s, who were deaf-mutes.
The twins resided in a rolling country, about four miles from Mount Airy, Surrey Co., N. C. They were prosperous farmers, each owning his own farm. The 4dwellings of the two families were a mile and a half apart. The twins resided three days in each of the homes alternately. ”

“ On Thursday evening the twins insisted upon leaving Chang’s house for Eng’s. The weather was very cold, and the journey was undertaken in an open carriage. On their arrival, however, Chang continued as well as before, until Friday evening, when he complained of thoracic oppression and inability to lie down with comfort. After having retired that evening, the twins were heard to get up, and go out on the porch, by the side of the house, where they drank of water, and returned to their room. They built a large wood fire, and sat down ”

“ One twin has sexual intercourse with his mother, and begets himself and his brother; and next he has sexual intercourse with his grandmother and begets his mother. I should think it would be difficult, mamma, though interesting. Oh, ever so difficult. I should think that the Corespondent —
All things are possible with God, my child.
Yes, I suppose so. But not with any other Siamese twin, I suppose. You don't think any ordinary Siamese twin could beget himself and his brother on his mother, do you, mamma, and then go on back while his hand is in and beget her, too, on his grandmother? ”

“ They are born on a boat, reared on a boat, get their education neglected on a boat, go a courting on a boat, get married on a boat, and never forsake the water till life is over and they set out on that long mysterious journey, from which no boat or carriage will ever bring them back. There is not much room in a boat, but the inhabitants thereof seem perfectly contented with their lot; in fact, the Siamese seem to be always and everywhere perfectly happy and contented: they are one of the merriest and most cheerful people upon the face of the earth. ”

“ The face is broad and flat, the cheek bones high, and the whole face assumes a lozenge shape. The nose is small, mouth wide, and lips thick, but not protruding. The eyes are small and black, and the forehead low. The complexion rather inclined to a yellowish hue. The whole physiognomy has a sullen aspect, and the gait sluggish." The Siamese, as a general thing, do not tattoo their bodies as many eastern nations do. ”

“ At first sight the children, with their straight black hair and their brown faces, strike the white man as being rather funny-looking little creatures. But after a while, when one has seen more of them, it is recognised that they possess a distinct charm and beauty of their own. Their features are quite different from those of the European, because they belong to a different race of people. The Siamese are Mongols, as are also the people of Japan, China, Burma, and Tibet. ”

“ The parents of the young lady will say: "We have consulted our relatives, and they are unanimously of the opinion that if the young man really loves our daughter, and can confide in her as a proper person to take care of him in sickness, and take charge of his body after death, his affections and confidence should be planted." "But how is it in regard to the ages, and birthdays of the parties? Are they such as to be suitable to each other?" The Siamese have a superstition that persons born in certain years, are incompatible with each other. ”

“ They are all the property of the king, and it is criminal to hurt or kill one of them. Once a year, a large number is collected together in the enclosure, and as many as are wanted of those possessing the points which the Siamese consider beautiful are captured. ”

“ It should be remembered also that because nearly all its words are monosyllables, the Siamese is fairly compelled to secure by some such means as these the needed rhetorical amplification of its otherwise highly condensed diction.
In the midst of this serious writing ช่าง sounds surprisingly like a bit of modern half-slang in the sense of "are great hands to" "are forever⸻". But there seems no escape from it. Nor need we flinch, I imagine, from the obvious suggestion of the set phrase which follows, that children and wives are sought in order to help in cultivating the fields. ”

“ The typical Siamese is of medium height, well formed, with olive complexion, darker than the Chinese, but fairer than the Malays, eyes well shaped though slightly inclined to the oblique, nose broad and flat, lips prominent, the face wide across the cheek-bones and the chin short. A thin moustache is common, the beard, if present, is plucked out, and the hair of the head is black, coarse and cut short. ”

“ A great variety of puppet-shows are contrived for the delectation of the children; and the Siamese are marvellously ingenious in the manufacture of toys and dolls, of porcelain, stone, wood, bark, and paper. They make pagodas, temples, boats, and floating houses, with miniature families to occupy them, and all true to the life in every apartment and occupation; watts, with idols and priests; palaces, with kings, queens, concubines, royal children, courtiers, and slaves, all complete in costume and attitude. ”

“ Their costumes consist of a long shirt and black pantaloons, like those of the Cochin-Chinese, and they have the Siamese tuft of hair. The women wear the same head-dress as the Cambodians. Their songs, and their way of drinking through bamboo pipes, from large jars, a fermented liquor made from rice and herbs, recalled to my mind what I had seen among the savage Stiêns. I also found among them the same baskets and instruments used by those tribes.
"The young girls are fair compared to the Siamese, and their features are pretty; but they soon grow coarse and lose all their charms. ”

“ It will, however, be long before they are entirely given up, for they provide opportunities for a merry holiday; and if there is one thing a Siamese loves more than another, it is a day of feasting and merriment, a day when work is thought of as something belonging only to the morrow. ”

“ What degree and kind of genius they may possess in music and in the arts remains to be seen. In the actual state of our knowledge, I cannot but consider the Siamese as prodigiously inferior to the rude inhabitants of the interior of Ceylon, with whom, as professing the same religion, they will admit of a comparison. ”

“ The Children Siamese children can only be described in the language that an English mother uses about her own small ones as they tumble over one another in the nursery or in the garden—they are just "little dears." ”

“ When ice itself was first introduced to the Siamese by the European residents, they promptly coined for it the short and expressive name of "hard-water." It is amusing to hear the little ones exclaim as they swallow the frozen fluid, "Golly! How it burns!"
As far as the casual observer can judge, in this capital of Siam there are no Siamese engaged in any hard manual labour at all. There are of course, many Siamese employed in various kinds of domestic or official work, but in the streets nearly every workman is Chinese. There are nearly as many Chinese in the country as there are Siamese. ”

“ Rational and reasonable on all other points as the Siamese are, the moment you try to approach them through their religious senses they appear like a world coming suddenly under an eclipse of the sun; slowly and surely the disk of their mind is darkened, and the gloom and perplexity increase, till it becomes completely obscured. ”

“ The Siamese are a tawny people, with short black hair, which both sexes cut quite short. They have faces broad in the middle, and narrowing toward the forehead and the chin. Their ears are naturally large; and, like many other nations in the torrid zone, they weigh them down with heavy ornaments, so that one might thrust several fingers through the distended apertures.
Long nails, particularly on the right hand, are considered a mark of gentility. They often attain a growth of several inches; and when women wish to be particularly elegant, they wear artificial ones four inches long. ”

“ In the second place, its central geographical position and its compact area would both defend it, in some degree at least, from the external contact and pressure which the Siamese has not been able to escape. And further, when we consider that any mind capable of thinking out such a scheme at all would not have made it purposely confused and irrational from the start ”

“ We have never succeeded in breeding any like our [76] chocolate cat; they all come fawn, with black or dark brown points; the last family are a little darker on their backs, which gives them a richer appearance than the pale fawn. Hitherto we have never had any half-bred Siamese; but there used to be a male Siamese at Hurworth-on-Tees, and there were many young bred from English cats. They invariably showed the Siamese cross in the ground colour. ”

“ The Tongans conceived it as the aeriform part of the body, related to it as the perfume and essence of a flower; and the Greenlanders speak of it as pale and soft, without flesh and bone, so that he who tries to grasp it feels nothing he can take hold of. The Siamese describe the soul as consisting of some strange matter, invisible and untouchable. ”

“ The Siamese children are very obedient and respectful to their parents, teachers, and those who are older than themselves. They never dream of arguing with those set in authority over them. They respect rank as well as age, but they have at the same time a certain amount of independence of character which prevents them becoming servile. ”

“ We have no reason to believe that such is the case with the Siamese. The care and attention they have bestowed upon the remains of their relations, seem but to endear their memory the more to them. The fear of death is, besides, of that nature, that neither the most deliberate reason, nor the most obtuse feeling, can lay it altogether aside. ”

“ The Siamese have an extravagant fondness for the drama, and for poetry of every kind. In all the lyric form predominates, and their compositions are commonly adapted for instrumental accompaniment. Their dramatic entertainments are mainly musical, combining rudely the opera with the ballet,—monotonous singing, and listless, mechanical dancing. Dialogue is occasionally introduced, the favorite subjects being passages from the Hindoo Avatars, the epic "Ramayana," and the "Mahabharata"; or from legends, peculiar to Siam, of gods, heroes, and demons. ”

“ In disposition the Siamese are mild-mannered, patient, submissive to authority, kindly and hospitable to strangers. They are a light-hearted, apathetic people, little given to quarrelling or to the commission of violent crime. ”

“ It is usual to inter women that have died pregnant; the popular belief is that the necromancers have the power of performing the most extraordinary things when possessed of the infant which had been thus interred in the womb of the mother: it is customary to watch the grave of such persons, in order to prevent the infant from being carried off. The Siamese tell the tale of horror in the most solemn manner. ”

“ If I am not entirely wrong, there is no other document extant which records the achievement of letters for an untamed speech by one to whom that speech was native, and which at the same time fully illustrates that achievement. When we recall the part these very letters of this very inscription have played in the culture and the life of the Thai race both north and south, and when we reflect that the very form in which we read and write Siamese today is the lineal descendant of that,—not far removed and but little changed,—we may be interested to know something more about it. ”

“ In the island of Bali, near Java, a woman who is so unfortunate as to bear twins is obliged, along with her husband, to live for a month at the sea-shore or among the tombs, until she is purified. The Khasias of Hindostan consider that to have twins assimilates the mother to the lower animals, and one of them is frequently put to death. An exactly similar belief prevails among some of the native tribes of Vancouver Island, Among the Ainos, one of the twins is always killed, and in Arebo, in Guinea, both the twins and the mother are put to death. ”

“ It has this name because the white elephant is the national emblem, and is represented on the Siamese flag, as the eagle is on the American flag.
Siam is a very pleasant country to live in, and a good many Europeans have from time to time had their homes there, so that the Siamese, who seem to be a teachable people, have learned a great deal from them, and have copied some of their ways. The missionaries, too, have done very much to improve the manners and customs of the Siamese. ”