The Story of the Gnome Fly Part 1 - The American Dwarf; Harvey Leach (1801-1847)

From the February 1954 issue of the US comic 'Nightmare'I believe the name "Hop-Frog" was not that given to the dwarf by his sponsors at baptism, but it was conferred upon him, by general consent of the seven ministers, on account of his inability to walk as other men do. In fact, Hop-Frog could only get along by a sort of interjectional gait - something between a leap and a wriggle … But although Hop-Frog, through the distortion of his legs, could move only with great pain and difficulty along a road or floor, the prodigious muscular power which nature seemed to have bestowed upon his arms, by way of compensation for deficiency in the lower limbs, enabled him to perform many feats of wonderful dexterity, where trees or ropes were in question, or anything else to climb. Edgar Alan Poe – Hop-Frog (1849) On the 4th April 1840 the Philadelphia Gazette suggested its readers take themselves to see “Signor Hervio Nano, the dwarf, who is performing at the Chestnut Street Theatre... this…