Morning journal and courier., 1882-11-10

coming, sir, when our courts will weigh not simply the evidence, but the accused, ano give the fat man the benefit of the doubt, ii there is any, every time. Look on the books of any prison in the land and gee if the rec ord of convicted felons' weights Is not g blazing torch of trut| in proof Of what l say, to light the world to a higher apprecia. tion of the moral beauty of adipose tissue. V
 Warden Fox, at the penitentiary on Black wells Island, when the reporter sought him for verifcation of what his fat friend Md said, replied: "Well, now that you call my attention to it, must say that the infrequen. cy of fat men being sent here is really very remarkable We average about nine hundred prisoners here constantly, and not two per cent. of them, in all the years I have had charge of this institution, have been men weighing two hundred pounds. Even those who did attain that weight. or near to 1t, were generally big framed, raw boned men, not what could properly be called fat men. Not one per cent, I should say, were really fat men. AS rule they weigh about l4O pounds, rather under than over. The hsav- jest criminal we ever had here was Tweed, who is recorded 263 pounds weight. The next heaviest is one we have here now, James Williams, who was sent up for larceny few days ago. He weighs 259 pounds. It would take long search over the records to find any more coming near that figure. Fat men seem to be too good natured to like to injure other people. I'm not prepared to say whether fat develops goodness or goodness develops fat, but they seem to go together. Any body can see for himself that there is not in society any such disproportionate mi nority of fat men as one per cent.-the pro- portion of them that we have here. Conse quently, the inference is unavoidable that the fat men do infinitely less than their share in peopling penal institutions. And when they do come they are the best prisoners i'm aginable. We have far less trouble with large men than small ones. I cannot think of any ether peculiarity of person that is so marked among criminals, as a general rule, as is that of small size. We have red heads and black heads, and white faces and brown faces, low brows and high ones, bull necks and thin ones, all in just about the same pro portion that you will meet them about town any day. But when you come to lean and fat, there the line is wonderfully marked"
 The response made by Mir. James Jackson, the old detective at Sing Sing prison, was even more emphatic in recognition of the superior goodness of fat men. And Jackson ought to know if anybody should. He has dealt with criminals for sixteen years Every one who goes into Sing Sing prison as con
 victed felon passes under his eyes, and so keen is his memory that not one of them is ever forgotten by him. And he said Eat convicts, either large or small, are very rare indeed Out of 1900 convicts now here, we nave only one or two fat men, and in the past ten years we have had only two or three. One that I remember was Fatty Dolan, 6 pickpocket, who died here few months ago of heart disease. His stature was but five feet one inch and he weighed two hundred pounds-a great deal for a man of that height Another was Robert White, alias 'Whitey Bob,' also pickpocket, who was five feet eight and 8 half inches high, and
 weighed 25O pounds A third was William
 Weston, alias Bill Conolly,' hotel thief, five
 eoo ;r sx, irhk or@ 1rHs
 weight And I cannot recall any others
 No, there were others worthy ot being
 called fat. And you must remember that WI
 have had 200 or l, 500 here all the time
 Of those we have at present, several ar'
 stout, strong men and big raw-boned men
 but no really corpulent mon. It would hard
 ly be fair to go entirely by weight, for
 small man may be very fat one, as in thu
 case of Fatty Dolan. I suppose the aver
 age w. fight of convfcts will be about 15' pounds, perhaps less. They will run Gttl
 heavier hero than in the penitentiary, a down there they get younger ones and of somewhat different class In height the. nearly all are between feet six inches and feet 10 inches not many either shorter O.
 taller. Indeed, aside from the one matter O fatness, there is wonderful s1mllarlt. among convicts. Light complexions pre- dominate among them-say light or browl ts dark brown hair and blue or gray eyes
  smaller sized ones with light complexions Red haired men, really red, are rather scarce Not more than twenty five arc in our presen 15OO; but suppose that isn't much out O the way of their proportion to society a large. Our best prisoners are always the fat test ones, but we have so few to make ul judgment on that we have even better opin ion of them than they deserve. I should not say that the percentage of fat criminal would go higher than one in 1,ooo-not real ly fat ones."
 Mr. Stephen Cutter, general agent of tn Prison association of Now York, said "Your inquiry opens a new vein of thought AS reflect on the matter, don't know tha ! inal life. Tweed was fairly fat. But ther are not many such men arrested I hay ! thought that the class of young criminals ! say from 15 to 25 years of age, that are no' ! and have been thronging our courts for elgt ! or ten years, were not quite up to the aver ! age size of men, and I should say that | think three. quarters of our criminals ar l foreigners or from foreign parents, and ar | not up to the standard of the native Amer | can"
 "There," commented the old observer | when the result of the inquiry was commr ! nicated to him, ''you see how right l wal Jackson was the only one who viewed tn | question properly and drew the line betwee l large men and fat men, and even he, out o ! his knowledge of criminals, could only reca three really fat ones tell you God loves \ fat man and makes it easy for him to pursu the way to a deserved heaven at last Di ! any painter ever imagine lean cherub | Never. But is the devil ever pictured with decent abdomen? Never. And the inspir l tion of art is right"