THEO PAIJMANS: Singular Race of Human Beings.

Here's an item I found some time ago in a 1853 newspaper (Skateaneles Democrat, June 3, 1853) - and note inter alia the comparison with 'beings from another planet':

regards,

Theo


'There are now in London two very singular human beings, of a race which has hitherto been very little known to the civilized world. They come from South Africa, where they are called Earthmen.

They are totally distinct from all other known African races—as much as if they had dropped upon this earth from another planet. They are small in size mere pygmies—and unacquainted even with the art of building huts, They shelter themselves in caves and crevices of the earth; when these are wanting they make artificial scoppings on the surface, which they line with leaves and cover with branches. The Hottentots and Bushmen, are the avowed enemies of the Earthmen, and when they meet them will shoot them down like vermin. The poor little defenceless Earthmen have no refuge but holes, trees, or thickets, and the tribe is fast verging to extinction. They are a poor weak people -one of Nature's freaks— and destined not to perpetuate their race. Few colonists have seen them; and although it is known that a few yet linger in the mountains, these are rapidly dying away, and will soon
become a tradition of an elvish African race of old.

The two individuals above mentioned were carried to England from the Cape of Good Hope two or three years ago, and have now become domesticated in an English family. The Morning Chronicle from which we take these particulars, describes these little Earthmen as a boy and a girl, the former fourteen snd the latter sixteen years of age, and "complete little fairies" in appearance. The boy is 3 feet and a half inches in height, the girl a trifle taller. Their skin is of the brightest and most transparent bronze, and as smooth and polished as matble, In form the little creatures are perfect—their delicate limbs standing out in the most graceful symmetry, and
every motion instinct with the untaught ease of nature.

The faces, although decidedly African in feature, are full of sweetness and good humor, and expressive of archness and intelligence.

They are named Martinis and Flora. In their savage state they fed on locusts, ant-eggs, and such small game as they could take. Till they were carried to England they had no ideas of God or any supreme power. At present they have been taught some of the customs of civilized life, and are able to speak little English words, to sing, little English popular airs, and —the first of Earthmen— to play little airs on a piano.

Few sights are more interesting in a thinking person than that of the last of a rate of human beings on the point of being blotted out from the face of the earth. The individuals in question seem to constitute one of the most anomalous forms of our species that have ever yet been brought to the notice of the naturalist or the ethnologist. It is to be hoped that further light will be thrown on their history by scientific researches.'