Richland beacon., 1873-10-11
INTELLECT IN FAT MEN.

INTELLECT IN FAT MEN.
Apropos of the discussion in the Itch
borne trail between the lord chief JUS
tice aud DR.. Kenealey on fat men, the
London Telegraph remarks: The opin-
ion of the lord chief justice, most tenn
perateiy and tolerantly expressed, was
that there are numbers of very stout
persons who are as remarkable for their
shrewdness as any thin ones. Cour-
teously declining to deal with the iiv-
ing, the presiding Judge instanced the
late Sergeant wilkins, who was certainly
no dullard, and who must have mea-
sured an uncomfortable number of
inches round the waist Dan'l Lambert,
again, who was 80 corpulent that when
he died his friends were fain to bury
him in coffin as big as a grand piano
forte, and to convey him to the ceme-
terry in broad-wheeled wagon, was a
very sharp, acute talker, and an excel
lent man of business. Sir Alexander
also mentioned Mr.. Harrison, Q. c., q
lawyer of excessive obesity, but with
exceedingly sharp intellect. DIR, Kenea-
ley, sticking to his postulats that dull
ness and fatness 60 together, ventured
to think that survey of the English
bench would show vast proportion of
lean men over fat ones, to which Sir
Alexander promptly rejoned that
judges were, as q rule, meagre, because
they worked so har |. DIR. Kenealey
had, nevertheless, the better of this
section of the argument. 1t can be
shown, by review of judicial portraits,
xho- haI H.,
were distinguished at once for en6ora-
point and for mental attainm nts
Chief Justice Gascoigne, who committed
Prince Harry for contempt; Page,
savage judge, unpleasantly known for
his hanging proclivities, but very good
at nisi prius, notably in ejectments; and
Jeffreys-Lord Chancellor Jeffreys-
though his fat was alcoholic and blsa-
ted, and not the unctuOus beefiness of
an honest man. Sir Matthew Hale was
as thin as whipping post Cooke, the
attorney-general of the Regicides, had
no fat on his bones; on the other hand,
Bradshawe. the president of the high
court of justice, was big, coarse, feshy
man. 1t may here be noted that Brad
shave was only under the legitimate
government o sergeant-at-law and Gu
riously many wearers of the Golf who
have never risen to the bench have been
fat. Sergeant Taddy was stout 90 was
Sergeant Arabin and the case of Ser
Reant Wilkins we have already men,
toned. Let it be likewise remembered
that, although for three hundred years
we have had no fat lord chancellors, the
keeper of the royal conscience was, in
the days of ecclesiastical char cellOrs,
usually very portly parsonage. VOL
sey was aldermanic in proportions; nor
was st. Thomas q beckett, at whose ad-
dictedness to game pie and rare bur-
gundy dean hook has delicately limited,
at all approximate to skeleton in di-
mensiOns. It is true that, toward the
close of his life, the saint practised the
banting SYSTEM in an exaggerated de-
gree; and, bat Tor the judicious exam
pie of Sir Alexander Cockburn, which
bids us abstain from bringing forward
living illustrations of the argument, pro
and con, We might point to the expert
ence of a certain eminent upholsterer
who once wrote q very remarkable book,
and who therein proved most trium
phantly that fatness and dulness do not
necessarily 60 together. The subject
discussed between the bench and the
counsel for the defence, SO abounds
with exceptions to any rule which the
controversialists might strive to estab-
lish, that it would only be by labo-
riously summing up the number. of
known cases on either side and striking
q balance that anything like satisfac-
tory conclusion could be formed. It is
at the same time next to impossible to
ascertain such a balance, from the con-
tinual additions that would be suggested
both to the debtor and creditor side of
the account. Napoleon the Great will,
of course, be claimed by the thin side.
He was, indeed, in youth deplorably
lsnk, and it was by mere bag of skin
and bones that Lodi Castiglione, the
pyramids and even Arcola was won.
Yet Austerlitz was gained by q stout
emperor, and at Leipsic he had become
immensely fat. Wherever. indeed, we
approached the question we are baf1ed
and checked in our efforts at solution.
Take the later kings of France. Louis
XIV. was undeniably clever, and, for
all his towering wig aud high-heeled
shoes, the undertakers found out, at his
demise, that the grand monarque had
always been Q lean, hatchet-faced, and
little man. Meagre as he was, his body.
surgeon declared him to have been the
most Unsuitable Rlutton he ever knew.
He was nearly always eating. He set
the fashion of having fowl and bottle
of wine placed by the bedside in case of
waking up and feeling hungry, and it