Squatter sovereign., 1856-05-06
SHORT PATENT SERMONS.
By DOW, JK.
will draw melancholy discourse this

| InOTulIlS, Itotil the lOllOWlng text:
| Laugh and grow fat.''
My Hearers-I have lately thrown my
cogitating apparatus considerably out of
gear in attempting to make out whether
laughter produces fat. or good layer of
the adipose promotes laughter. The con-
ciusion have arrived at, is, that laughter
is, generally speaking, the spontaneous
production of an oleaginous soil, and has
little or nothing to do towards adding
aught to its richness. 1t is the naturally
contented mind, my friends, that tends to
corporeal fatness; and when fatness is
once obtained, laughter takes root therein,
and branches out and blossoms, like sum
flowers on the southern side of pig.stye.
Take one of your wo-begone, God-forsaken
hypochondriaes-the whole of whose self
manufactured misery seems to have crawl
ed inte his conference.-the very cast of
whose mildewing eye is enough to rub all
the polish from a pair of patent-leather
boots-let him possibly be electrified into
cacchinating paroxysm, long and loud,
and no more fat will gather upon his ribs
than honey-dew upon the sapless role
leaves of an old maids bonnet. Why 2
Because the maggots of melancholy that
continually prey upon his mind are not to
be frightened from their favorite repast by
the most startling guffaw that ever shook
the quiet realms of cheerfulness. Take,
too, one of your pale, wafer-lipped, weasel
visaged, skin-fints, who INDUCES in moon
shiny smiles at the remotest prospect Of a
bargain, and who is more redundant of
smirks and bows than disowned Califor-
MIA dog is of feas-move him into fits of
audible mirthfulness as often as you may,
still he will be as slim as shitepoke fed
, upon hair-snakes, if he were 10 live long
enough to be the grand-dad of all the little
Beelzebubs who may happen to be born
, somewhere about the middle of the next
century.
/, Now, my brethren, behold yonder happy
mortal, with soul wrapped up in thick
blanket of fat-with a knob plump and
shining as pumpkin IN October-whose
merry little optics twinkle like twin stars
, at the summit of Mount Diabolo-whose
fair round belly, with good capon lined,' y
is an object of envy to all "walking
shadows " that stalk the earth. Ali of his
, ideas swim, like preserved sardines, in the
richest and sweetest of oil every express
ed thought slides out sleek and greasy,
and the whole tenor and tone of his voice
are like the inner bark of slippery elm.
His mind dwells in such comfortable win
ter quarters that he never feels otherwise
than happy and cheerful. He feels so
good that laughter-not of your coarse,
horse fashioned kind, but the fine, short
furred sort-peeps out, ever and anon.
from its fat fold, and causes every "var-
mint" of care to take to its hole, like rats
and goblins damned at the morning COCK
crow.
What, my friends, do you suppose
brought this laughter-breeding human to
the verge of obesity2 1t was not laugh
ing at either stage or street farces; nor at
the freaks and follies of ridiculous world !;
} nor at every new-fangled and odd fashion,
that makes organ-grinders' monkeys al
most grin themselves into commissions !;
nor, hyena-like, at the most ridiculous of
legislative proceedings-nor was it even
at such comical preaching as mine. No:
it was the genial spirit of contentment that
diff;,Sod a cboorinn xro rr,th sbro,,obo,.. he
whole system-fertilized his heart, and
furnished good soil from which future
spontaneous laughter was to spring, like
the dandelion and mushroom, after gen.
tie rain and nurturing sun. He never
: drove pigeon-eyed peace from her domicile
by sweating, fighting. and swearing for
politics, nor wrangled flesh from his bones
in behalf Of orthodoxy, universalism, a:he-
i, ism, nor any of the vulgarisms of the day
l-nor kept himself as lean as Pharaoh's
lousiest calf by chasing hammered SIX
pence from San Diego to the Bay of Kam-
scatka. BY keeping in good fellowship
with himself and his siomach-by MAIN
tanning good humor-meddling with no
ones business but his own-exercising pa
ltience at the fisful blowing of adverse
winds. and bound to be happy whether or
no-he, at last, accumulated the adipose,
if not superabundance of the $ filthy j"
land now mirtn-inspiring laughter viii jerk
| Itself out, in defiance of morbid meIan-
j cholly, sepulchral ministers, ominous doc
i tors-aye, even the devil himself.
| My brethren: ! like to see smiling
countenanees-faces wearing smiles that
warm while they ,zlov. instead of shed