Los Angeles daily herald., 1875-03-10
AN EXPLODED FAT RAN.

All nations have given to the Chi
nese the honor of being the most in
| genious people in the world. They
are ever ready in curiosities of art and
nature.
The colony of Chinese on st. Ann
street, opposite the Superior District
Court, love, like all Cinnamon, to boast
of the greatness of China, it's wonders
and magnifcence. The following story
was told us by one of them, Che Fung,
| the other night, as proof of Chinese
| superiority over the barbarians of the
West. Whether it were Chinese
hoax or not, il is at least theoretically
and naturally possible.
Che-Fung is picture of the more
wretched Chinese. He is frightful,
disgusting in appearance. Tall for a
Chinaman, being over six feet in
skeleton scarecrow. His face is COW
cred with wrinkles, like school-boy's
atlas; his nose must be taken for grant
edit is mere suspicion; his mouth
is gulf in itself; mis- eyes are alto
gether out of the right position; and
the flesh of bis face hangs down like
the hide of q rhinoceros. Altogether
Che-Fung is disgusting sight, and
looks as if he had been hung and dried,
! boiled and smoked and then buried for
a month or so, and dug up to be exhib-
tied. Yet Che-Fung is a good talker
in Pigeon English, and in confden-
tial manner disclosed his whole history
in that language, of which, while MAX
ing out one word in ten, we get gen.
eral idea.
His story being translated, is SUBJ
stantially as follows:
/ was circus man in China-Tsien
Jing, as we call it. We are great on
] gymnastics and legerdeman; but par
ticularly in natural phenomena, hui
man curiosities, etc. There is human
monstrosity manufact0ry at 'Tsacping,
where, for consideration, any of the
human defOrmities you Americans
regard as ldpsi nature can be made to
order. There are many parents who
thus sacrifice their children to be made
monsters of, and who live on the gain
ing by the exhibition of those monstros-
tiles.
cannot explain how all these
tricks are done, but that they are done
y
Is of easy manufacture. A regular
dose Of whisky and tea to child will
stunt it-keep it down to its original
size. A monstrosity, hunchback, is
of course easy; while human beings
can be made of any shape from cock
to an elephant, by being moulded in
jar like jelly-stuck into a jar of the
desired shape when young and left
there to develop itself.
GAS for myself, was brought up a
| fat man."
"a fat manv' we exclaimed invol-
UNFAIRLY, looking at Che-fung's spare
form. "Do you manufacture fat peo-
pie in China?'
at is only a trick of the trade, Twas
naturally thin boy, but old Fee Lee
soon brought me out. You have seen
sheep slaughtered here; seen them
skin them. A hole is made in the
outer skin (the epidermis) and bel
lows is inserted and worked. The air
finds its way between the cuticle and
| and CUTS, or skin proper, and swells
out the animal to double It's size, at
| the same time that italmost separates
| these two skins, so that the hide of
! the animal comes off easily. This is
| the manner in which [ was treated.
Every morning | was given an air
bath, and gallon or so of air injected
into my system, and soon began to
swell like o balloon.
| In a month or so was returned to
my parents fat boy, and fine speci-
men of fat boy; measuring, although
only Is, 88 inches around the chest and
46 inches around the thigh. was
advertised as weighing 600 pounds;
the truth was, / weighed only about
18O, the 80 being the weight of 200 gall
Ions of air by which was puffed out.
1 don't believe that l, altogether, pre-
sented very pretty aspect, being
puffed out and lumpy in appearance,
and looking bloated rather than fat.
However, a very close observer could
not detect the imposture, and | was
exhibited for many years, earning a
respectable livelihood for my parents,
who had brought me up to the profess
sion of fat man.
1.-THE profession was not an agreea-
BILE one. The air made me ever feel
sleepy and sick. 1t did not, however,
make me lazy; did not impede me as
fat would have done. Those who saw
my agility and gracefulness on The
street, wondered how SO fat a man
could be so lively, little suspecting
that his apparent fatness was an as
sistance, and half carried me along
the street. There were few young
men in China that could beat the
monster of six hundred pounds in 8
foot race.
came over here and exhibited in
America in San Francisco for some
time. One day during sitting al
American child, with the usual in
genuity and investigating disposition
of American children, crept up behinC
me, and, probably impressed with the
desire of discovering whether ia
man could feel or not, ran a pin o.
knife or something sharp into mt
while no one was observing him. Th'
result was somewhat of an explosion II
the captive air rushed out, and left nj
thin looking individual as | an
now. There was no one to blow M
, up scientifically, and therefore gav'
, up the profession of fat man for tha
of washerwoman. i seldom feel any
evil consequences from my previou
: condition, save my cuticle, or QUITE
} skin, is almost separated from myself
t and, like an ill-fitting suit of clothes
! almost drops off, or lunches itself VI
{ in a disagreeable manner. l some
| times get cold inside of it, which is no
3 at all comfortable. Still the the posi-
5 tion of a washerwoman is much pre-
-.