CONNECTICUT CORPULENCE.

Tuapeka Times, Volume II, Issue 103, 29 January 1870, Page 7

CONNECTICUT CORPULENCE.

THE PAT MEN'S PICNIC AT NORWALK. The second annual gathering of the Fat Men of the World was held at Gregory's Point, Norwalk (U.S.), on Friday, 20th August. The following racy description of the event is given by the special correspondent of the " New Yoik World :— Here is, indeed, richness ! Fancy to yourself 25,3731b5. of fel-low-being done up in 140 human packages, varying in weight, like those of sugar and eke of tea the scales of your commissioner tried, from the puny infant of 1971b5., who vainly hoped to eat clams enough to raise him to 2001b5., but who was cut off in the blossom of his sin, and weighed before dinner, to the full-grown Fisk, by no means the junior of that ilk, -who weighs 3581b5., but striking an average of a trifle over 2201b5. Sing, Muse, the secret sources of this avalanche of adipoceration. Last year it entered into the head of some mute tin-glorious Barnum of this primeval Arcadia to organise a clam-bake of fat men. The minimum of fatness was fixed at 2001bs. To this gathering, thus fixed, wended and waddled, few and fat, but fearless still, not the bone and sinew, perhaps, but the adipose tissue of Norwalk and its vicinity. They came on waggons constructed expressly for steam boilers and their noble selves ; they broke down the springs of trucks ; they were conveyed in steamers fitted each for a fat man. They came in every way except on foot, for they could not run Nor- work. The meeting was not numerous, but it had weight. The fattest man in it was Mi\ G-. Sydney Smith, who weighed 3181 b., I believe. He was unanimously chosen president. Flesh and blood could not resist him, for they were he. It was, moreover, determined to establish the clam-bake on a permanent basis, broad as his fundamental fat. Mr. Merritt Sherwood, a chubby youth of only less weight, was chosen viceI president, and the result of their joint sittings was the incubation of the present egg. Notice was given of this clam-bake some weeks ago, and at once the fat men of Connecticut flung their Bantings from them, and devoted themselves to a dilation. Their bosom, and the regions immediately inferior thereto, swelled at the prospect of outweighing their president, and they fed full, and eschewed exercise. I took the express train out of New York on the morning, but I was disappointed at not finding either the train or the land to flow with fatness. But at Stamford a gloom overcame the air. The car was for one moment in eclipse, and the next a vast and vague bulk of black broadcloth was compressed within the door, shut off the view, and expanding, overflowed the seats on both sides. It seemed as if this was the consummation of obesity — it was only the beginning. When the train stopped, it was seen that three fat men occupied the courtyard, and two more crowded the barroom. Acres of fat then met tde eye wherever it turned, and above these acres yards of fat smile spread placidly. It seemed *a dreadful dream, or the broadest of broad farce. It was literally too much, and I asked the way to the scene of the clam-bake. There was a stage just going down — a long and lofty stage drawn by four horses. Into the stage got two fat men, who seemed to fill it, but only seemed', for the driver found room in their interstices for a dozen lean human beings. The man in whom I was interested was not only a frightfully fat man, but a humorist. He laughed continually, and his vast wheezes drove the unfortunate passengers against .the ends of the stage with frightful coucussions. At this the fat man laughed again, and the stage rolled and pitched like a tub with a head wind. The springs gave way under him, and he chuckled like a subterranean convulsion. In short, this fat I man, with the kindest intentions, was a terror to his kind. He leered a fat and flagrant leer at the fattest woman extant, who passed us in a buggy. This fat woman, by the by, was not at the clam-bake, though she was clearly eligible, but exhibited herself upon the road to the intoxicated rapture of the fat men in general, and our fat man in particular. The fat man nodded to her like Olympian Jove, and she deepened the creases in her countenance by way of encouragement to him. When we passed other monstrously fat men, our fat man would cry out to them in much astonishment, "Hi ! Fatty !" and shake the stage with chuckles over this exquisite pleasantry. This " Hi ! Fatty !" we subsequently found to be the usual salutation of the fat men. As a joke, it grows- trite after the three hundredth hearing. When all the giants had mustered, and the fat, so to speak was all in the fire, public feeling crystallised around two centres, or, more properly, within two circumferences. The first was a chubby youth of 35 ; the second, a stout and mature man of 60. It was thought universally that the presidency lay between these two. A wilderness of black broadcloth encompassed" the first, 'while the second wore a short brown coat, and infinite brown trousers laved ihis legs. The first was tall and pyramidal, — Large rolls of fat around his shoulders clung, And from his neck the double dewlay hung. The second" was shorter and cylindrical,

It seemed as if you could have dug a clean spadeful out of No. 1. without ever molesting him, and that you might shoot parrots all day at No. 2. without penetrating him. One was blubber, the other was bawn. How happy could we have been with either, were the other dear charmer away. There was no other way of " trying " it except by ordering both to the scales. The result was that John A. P. Frisk, of New York, is the president, and James A. Lincoln, of Springfield, Illinois, only the vice-president of the solid sodality for the coming year. Mr. Frisk weighs 3581b5. ; Mr. Lincoln weighs 329. To the hilarity at this point there was one marked exception. The expresident waddled his lonely way in silence. Was it for this he had fed full and moved slowly, in reliance upon the maxim of the lean and therefore untrustworthy Sullust, that " power is easily retained by those arts which have acquired it " 1 Was it for this he had swollen and sw — perspired to gain a paltry 3181b5.? All is vanity and vexation of spirit. The love of corpulence is the root of all evil. He heapeth up fat and cannot tell who shall gather it. These, and such like texts, were doubtless the subject of his meditation in that bitter hour. I beg to tender him my sympathy, and to make this public proclamation that, in spite of the fact that he has been outgrown, he is a good portly man, i' faith, and a corpulent. Another 3001 b. man is Merritt Sherwood, of New Milford, to whom, if nature had been as bountiful throughout as she had been in- the epigastric region, and proportioned him to his paunch, the presidency would have I fallen, for his watch-chain is like the herald Mercury, new lighted on a heaven-kissing Mil, and by virtue mainly of Ms abdomen he weighs 3071 b. The only other one is Andrew Hull, of Danbury, who is a tall young man of much pith and moment, and 305 avoirdupois, j As to the clam-bake itself, it was' like all other clam-bakes except in one regard. The appetite of the fat men was good, but the appetite of the lean men — who were passed for fat — was terrible. Now was seen the unholy little game of the wretch who weighed 17<51bs. before dinner. I saw him. I marked him. It was the fixed intention of this sham-fat man to make up the difference in 'dinner, and to eat 251bs. avoirdupois. And it is my opinion that he accomplished his fiendish purpose. But, happily for justice, the authorities had restricted such as he, and weighed them empty and unwilling. When he had been filled, there was a will, but there was no longer a weigh. The proceedings proper were tame. The president made a very small speech for so very large a man, and Andrew Hull gave him an enormous cane. But there were no foot races, no velocipede riding ; the main interest was to see non multa, sed multum, how much there could be of so few peoyle. And if these lines convince the readers of them of the truth of Milton's line, that " They also serve who only stand and weight," their purpose will have been accomplished.