As a contrast to the “Two Smallest Men and Greatest Curiosities Living,” Barnum engaged Anna Swan, the Nova Scotia giantess, who was seventeen years old and was supposed to be the tallest woman in the world. Her features were attractive, and in spite of her enormous size she was admired for her beauty. For many years she was a leading attraction at the Museum; later she married Colonel Bates, a giant, and they toured England with success. In the same year, 1862, Barnum discovered another dwarf, a young girl, Lavinia Warren, who lived with her parents in Middleboro, Massachusetts. Lavinia Warren, whose name at baptism was Mercy Lavinia Warren Bumpus, was born October 31, 1841. She traced her pedigree to William, Earl of Warren, who married Gruneda, daughter of William the Conqueror. Lavinia had two older brothers and two older sisters, and they were all more than six feet tall. She had two younger brothers of normal size and a younger sister, Minnie Warren, who was also a dwarf. Lavinia’s father was six feet in height, and her mother was a tall woman. After she was ten years old she stopped growing, and at that time was twenty-four inches high and weighed twenty pounds. She went to school in Middleboro and was taught housework by her mother. Throughout her girlhood she lived the life of a normal person; she was extremely sensitive about her abnormality and determined that it must not make any difference. She studied hard, and at the age of sixteen became a school teacher in the Middleboro school, where she was always able to maintain proper discipline in spite of her size. She was satisfied with this occupation for life. Then a cousin, who was a traveling showman, visited the Bumpus house and suggested that Lavinia should travel with his show. She was eager to see the country, and, after gaining the reluctant permission of her parents, she went West with her cousin, whose show was located on board a Mississippi River boat that stopped for exhibitions at all important towns on the river. During her travels Lavinia Warren met General Grant and Stephen A. Douglas. The latter tried to kiss her, but she was conscious of her womanhood and drew back with becoming modesty. Douglas did not bother her further. Barnum heard of Lavinia Warren in 1862, and he engaged her for several years, including the privilege of a foreign tour. Before exhibiting Lavinia Warren at the Museum, Barnum placed her in a suite at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, where she was visited by fashionable society and popular Civil War generals, including the Vanderbilts and the Astors and Generals McClellan, Burnside, Rosecrans and McPherson. Barnum purchased jewels and an elaborate wardrobe for Lavinia, and when society admirers had stimulated general curiosity sufficiently, he exhibited her to the public at the Museum. II