The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1881-12-23
New York world.[
Men of Unbounded stomaohs.

Men of Unbounded Stomachs.
True gluttony, like true charity, "hath no
locality, no tone provincial, no peculiar garb."
From the period of the Roman empire down to
the present day there is bright roll of magni-
fcent or merely mighty feeders, glance at
which is not without interest. 1t is not very
easy 70 classify the gluttons of classical times,
for between the man who merely feeds and
consumes an immense amount of provender
and the man who squanders large fortune on
expensive meals there is or may be avast differ
ence. For instance, Vitellius-whom Mr.. ST.
las wegg very properly named Vittle-us-
spent S5,000LN a month for seven months on
his table. WHEN the number of convives is
considered and the prices of the dishes--a ton
of rare fish and three and half tons of rare
birds at one banquet in days when fanciers
paid 1925 for red inullet and 81 apiece for
pigeons-the expenditures may not seem exces-
sive. A man might eat of a $4,000 dish OF
birds tongue, yet not be, in the strict sense OF
the word, gutton, and nightingales' tongues
the brains of pheasants and peacocks, and the
roes of the rarest and most delicate fishes, were
not only favorite but common dishes among the
elite of imperial Rome. Heliogabalus is cred
tied with spending 100000 at one supper, and
Nero with eating a dish costing $4,000 and
washing it down with bumper yet more costly
but this proves nothing, unless it be the sheer
idiocy and wastefulness of the convives. A
different aspect is touched upon when the
question is approached-How they eat? And
when it is stated that Verus increased the num-
Der of guests from nine to twenty, and made
his supper coterminous with the dark, that
Nero sat at the table II hours, that Tiberius
and Vitellius sat there all the time they were
not in bed, that Commodus ate in his bath, and
that Domitian carried round classical sandwich
TO stay his hunger between meals, it must be
admitted that most of these noble diners were
gluttons.
Maxillinian, who ate forty pounds of meat
and drank five gallons of wine at repast,
could, at least, allege his size. Not SO the av-
erage elutton-not so, indeed, the modern glut-
ton. Thus only a few months ago there died at
Kingston, in this state, Mr.. Alexander Grant,
Familiarity known as the "Kinderhook glut-
ton," who without any Inconvenience would
deyour twenty pounds of solids at sitting,
washed down by not less than gallon OF milk
and coffee. We read that five pounds of beef
steak were regarded by him as but an appetiz-
err and unless such side dishes as half peck
of potatoes a whole boiled cabbage, dig pie,
and complete pudding were provided also,
he insisted that he had only lunched." Though
he has left us, and his loss we deeply feel, we
are not without some consolation in the fact
that Squire Carey is left us-'Squire Carey of
Walkhill, whom his admiring friends dub "the
man with the rubber stomach" A dispatch of
recent date informs us that the squire "swal-
lowed half gallon measure full of oysters and
four large plates of crackers. He then offered
to eat six quarts more of oysters If any one
would nav for them, but his offer was not ac-
cepted 1t is said that at one sitting Carey has
eaten 400 CLAIMS and at another half-barrel OF
shell oysters" As compared with him may
be cited Mr. "Rom' Lawson of Allensville, n
O.. who on election day last year, ate lone and
q half quarters mutton, Is biscuit, one pound
candy, two half grown chickens, five behring's,
one loaf of corn bread, and piece OF shoat
supposed to weigh about one pound, drank
three quarts of water, and said he hadn't eaten
half enough He then offered to bet he could
throw any man or lift more with hand stick
than any man on the ground. In order to test
his strength he took man that weighed 200
pounds and carried him about over the ground
In his teeth. He then went up to another table
and called for % cent snack" Mr. Lawson
has an honorable rival in Mr.. Joshua J0ypes, a
gentleman weighing $50 pounds and owning to
sixty summers, who last summer sat down to
dinner at Onancock, Accomac county, Va, and
ate fifteen pounds of pork, twelve links of boz
logna sausage, souse from one large hog, one
large goose, one full grown chicken, one peck
of sweet potatoes, one dozen large biscuits one
large miIce pie and six cups of strong coffee.
Mr.. Joynes sat down to this repast at / o'clock
and at 2 20 he had disposed of every article
named, picked the bones of the fowls and taken
a glass of egg nog. Not long ago, in Paris, a
gentleman known as the Jackal, on a wager,
ate IL feet of blood pudding in twenty min
utes, washing it down with half gallon of
wine thus proving himself worthy to sit down
at the Gargantuan repasts in Fiji, at which, ac-
cording to Miss Gordon Cumming, one sees
served twenty buildings, the largest being
twenty feet in circumference.