On January 17th, 1874, 62-year-old North Carolina resident Chang Bunker passed away in his sleep after having contracted pneumonia. Tragically, within a few hours, his brother Eng also died. Less than two weeks later, the widows of Chang and Eng Bunker received the following letter from Brooklyn-based 'Rozell, Horton & Gray' in which the they were offered cash in return for the bodies of their late husbands. Usually, such a request would seem surprising, but
Siam-born
Chang and Eng Bunker had lived their entire 62 years joined at the
sternum, their livers fused.
As a result, the term 'Siamese Twins' was born.
Transcript follows.
Transcript
Brooklyn, January 29th 1874.
Mrs. Kang and Ang,
We wish to negotiate with you about the Bodys of the twins it is a (?) subject but we wish you to answer by Return Mail the lowest price Cash. Confidential on our part you will oblidge us very much. Name your price. We would not think of proposing the subject but we think it will be for the Benifit for the County as others may be so unfortunate.
We Remain Respectfully Yours
Rozell, Horton and Gray
387 Myrtle Avenue
Brooklyn
N York
11 comments:
Fascinating if sad - I had no idea the origin of the phrase.
Do we know how Mrs. Kang and Ang reacted?
What is amazing is that Chang and Eng fathered 21 children.
The letter reads strangely similar to a Nigerian scam email. "Confidential on our part you will oblidge us very much."
I believe the last line reads "as others may be so unfortunate."
And the first line "We wish to negotiate with you about the Bodys of the twins it is a Coarse subject but we wish you to answer by Return Mail the lowest price Cash."
I agree with Ishmael. Very scammy-sounding email.
It is "as others", as Payo wrote. Look closely.
Wikipedia seems to indicate that this letter was ignored. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chang_and_Eng_Bunker
I think it says "it is a base subject".
Anyone bothered to check "Rozell, Horton and Gray" in Brooklyn to see who they were and what they did ?
Possibly a law firm representing P.T. Barnum or similar [was there ever anyone "similar" ?]
After analyzing it in Photoshop by tweeking with levels, it appears to say: "A Grose subject" the A is a capital and is easy to make out after tweaking the levels. However, the rest is not so easy even after tweeking. It most likely says "A Coarse subject" because I seriously doubt they would have said gross and I doubt even if they did, they wouldn't have mispelled it like that. But after tweeking it sure does look like the letters G-r-o-s-e.
They actually were thought to share vital organs but it was only a tough bit of tissue joining them that could have been removed easily at any time. No one knew; no one was willing to risk the operation.
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