Omaha daily bee., 1884-03-22
TOO BIG-HEARTED TO LIVE.
A Museum Manager Talks About Fat
Women.
Their Early Deaths Largely Owing
to Lack of EXCrCisc-Eair
and Fat but seldom
Forty.
Now York Journal.

They all 90 oil III the same way, 90
served the man who started the first dime
museum in the Bowery to a Journal re-
porter yesterday. Scarcely has a woman
reached a size that draws crowds to see
her, when the old man with a scythe steps
in and mows down your fat freak, not to
speak of your profits"
FATTY degenerations of the heart, the
doctors call the cause of their death, and
they tell me that the adipose matter-is
that right inquired the exhibitor of
Natures whims, lis deposited not only
under the skin, but on the delicate mem
branes that form the valves of the heart,
as we'll as around the oriiicesof the valves
themselves.
Everything looks prosperous. The
brass band IN the second story window is
blowing away for dear life. The ticket
seller can scarcely handle the dimes that
are flowing in. The proud owner of the
six hundred pounds of female loveliness
is the picture OF health and rosiness, when
fap,-one of the valves shut 0 ,aud stays
shut
Pausing d moment to breathe a sigh
that nearly knocked over the living skel-
| eton, who, standing by, was listening to
the dangers he had no share In, the
speaker continued: "The trouble with all
the fat women that exhibit themselves is
that they don't take exercise They go
to the museum in the morning and there
they sit all day and half the night. They
never move unless it is to walk to the
nearest restaurant that has contracted for
their meals. If they would only move
the rest of their bodies half as vigorously
as they move their Jaws they'd keep in
good health without reducing their
weight. There's Hannah Battersby, for
example, who was the heaviest of them
all. Not a day passed but that she
walked a certain distance; the conse-
quence is she is living now, hale and
hearty, at fifty years of age.
"But | can't drum it into the others,
continued the Snowman, regretfully,
that they should follow her example and
the consequence is that every now and
then | have to hire four or five carpenters
at 50 a day for a week to build the cotfins
for them.
''The last one of the show fat womer
to de-" went on the speaker, twas Jes
sic Waldron. She was only twenty year,
old, over six feet in height and really
400 pounds, though, of course, her SHOW
weight was greater. Two years ago sh'
was in Bunnell's Museum at Cone.
Island. Jesse Reed, who had charge o
the %curiositles i'll the museum, fell IL
love with her, and she r~eciprocated will
the full weight of her affections. The.
were married, and one child has blessed
the union. 4 month ago the famll.
went to Buffalo, n. Y, where Jessie wa
to exhibit herself. She died there sud
denly on Tuesday last and was burie'
yesterday in Evergreen's Cemetery
Long Island.
"Poor GIRL" said the museum mar
sadly, ''she was of the kindest dispos
tion, and so good-natured that every on
loved her. On her monument should b
Q inscribed: She laughed and grew fat.
q "The death of Blanche Gray, went o
. the necrologist, was even more sldder
n Blanche weighed $50 pounds, and wa
only II years of age when she met Dayi
0 Moses. Moses evidently saw in her tn
. promised land, for he proposed to he
9 and was accepted. The happy pair starte
y on their wedding trip with the most bri
liant prospects, which were enhanced I
Moses by the salary of $50 a week draw
by his better half. In Baltimore on tn
Doth Of last October the cruel faUe tha
: seems to overhang all women beyond
j certain avoirdupois overlook Blanche an
left Moses a lonely widower.
:, "Annie Woods, surnamed the Beaut
full Fat Woman, " concluded the museul
proprietor. sadly, Preached only the az
of II, although she boosted of AZ
pounds of charms before she was cut OF
a coiored fat oma named Fam
White, travelling with the Nathan shoV
, in II Pullman car, fell asleep and new
woke up again. 1t was annoying to II
> car company, for they had to take off IL
n roof of the car-but | think I've told yc
enough to prove to you that life is doub
r uncertain to fat women, and ! must no
leave you to change the spots on tn
d chap upstairs from Mexico"