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GREAT CURIOSITY -- We were not heretofore aware of the fact, that there exists about three and a half miles north of Shelby, a curiosity almost as great as the double child of Morrow County.  It is a child about eight years old, the body of which has never grown, and its head only the first year after its birth.  The head however is very large, weighing much more than its body -- perhaps twenty-five pounds alone.  It cannot walk or speak, but gives evidence of intelligence.  It takes its food in the usual manner, having had its first teeth, which have been succeeded by others.  Its health has generally been good, and exhibits playfulness as children generally do when in health, yet it is helpless as a child two days old.  The parents James and Jane Powell are aged about forty years, and no cause has or can be assigned by them for this strange phenomenon, unless it could be traced to the small-pox -- which the mother had during the period of gestation.  The parents have frequently been asked to permit the child to be exhibited, but have refused all such requests.  We have no doubt were the matter generally known, that the curiosity would be as great in the public to see this child, as that which attended the birth of the double child of Morrow County a few years since.  Miss Dolphina Powell is indeed a great curiosity.

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Monday, May 05, 2008