The Daily Dispatch: October 23, 1861., [Electronic resource]

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Large men.

--The assertion has frequently been made that the men of the present generation, especially in America, and more especially in the Southern States, are physically degenerate. Much has been both sadly and satirically said and written about the small size of the men who now play their parts on the stage of life. The following statement of a correspondent of the Montgomery Advertiser, shows that one locality in the South does not produce pigmies. The writer says that a company of volunteers from Merriwether county, Ga., contains ‘"77 men 6 feet 9 inches high; the aggregate weight of the 77 men, 18,557 lbs.; its commander weighing 341 pounds, without one pound of surplus flesh; can hold 153 pounds at arm's length. His lady was 5 feet 11 inches high, and weighed 263 pounds. Now, Alabama, bring in your colossal, and if you can beat this, then take my old hat. I know a boy, son of Mr. John Grant, of the same county, 14 years of age, weighs 196 pounds has a foot — I don't know the exact length — but something like a number 12 shoe would be a Sunday's fit. Your humble servant, at the age of 14, weighed 163 pounds; now, 173 pounds. "’