The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1894-09-09
POISONED BIZ IMPLICATION.
How Norsich's Street Commis.ioner WAKES
and wanes with the Dog Days.

and wanes with the Dog Days.
NORWICH, Conn.,, Sept. s.-The genial and
ruddy-faced Street Commissioner OF this city.
George Z. Fellows. is not at work this week;
neither is he exactly sick. He Is at home Just
now nursing his face, which Is as big, dubious,
and blooming. almost as richly embellished,
too. as a toy balloon. He sits all day in his tall
back rocker, his radiant disk radiating n yellow
glow out Of his window into the street, like Os-
slams full moon, sitting between the western
hills.
From time to time his folks sop his orb
Gcorges-with cloths wrung out in ice-cold
water. He is waxing now. Pretty soon he will
begin to wane, then become gibbous; and
finally he will resume the crescent phase and
return to the city's streets and go TO work again.
George is confident about all this. his prospec-
tive Career, and for the very good reason that no
has been u full moon. a satellite, SO to speak, q
good many times before, gone kiting through
his yearly lunar orbit. shedding a mellow, har-
vest-home illumination on things. and has never
failed TO come around again all right. There
fore. he has no fears about himself. Still 1t Is
blamed uncomfortable he says, even II not posi-
lively painful, to be a harvest moon Of the first
magnitude.
What is the matter with Commissioner Fell
lowsr That is precisely the inexplicable mys-
terry OF II all-what no physician or specialist
has ever been able successfully to fathom and
dispel. lie has been poisoned-that much is
certain. He has not been poisoned literally,
however. He is poisoned rather by implication,
sequentially, by virtue OF peTiodicity, recur-
renee. IL Is a very queer and singular thing,
the phenomenon OF the commissioners case.
When he was a very small boy in the country
he is now fair and forty-with no shoes or hat
on. he mixed himself up carelessly and promis-
cuously with a clump of poisonous plants in a
rural pasture land; and the ,yiperish weeds re-
taliated on him later by blowing him up as
his FIRST circuit in his novel full moon capacity.
the beginning OF his periodic annual rise and de-
family. and friends, who naturally feared
he might hurst like a hot-air balloon with his
abnormal distention: but, luckily, he stopped
swelling on the safe side OF his limit OF tensile
strength. An old-time country doctor, with
old fashioned, herbs. pulled him down finally;
siderably less rapid than that OF his imitation,
nevertheless he dwindled steadily into ordinary
human proportions in about a month.
lie had beon poisoned in August, while the
venomons plant. which WAS the cause OF his phe-
nomensl performance, was In full bloom, aud it
over IL. But the strange noxious weed was by
no means through with him. Each year since.
about the latter part OF August, just as soon as
eastern Connecticut meadows and pas
lures, Mr.. Fellows, by n strange fate, DO
gins 20 swell up again; 6pt since his hrss
only his head and face. IL is a curious thing.
too. that the Commissioner in his dilntion pat
terms his phases very closely after those of the
moon. waxing with the last moon ofAugust. and
going 10 pieces, waning, with her early in Sep
TENDER. There, is, no cure; apparently, for this
lows; at least. he has tried about everything.
he affirms, for II fruitlessly. so he just lets him
self 90, calmly watches himself wax or wRne,
growing aimlessly in turgescence and splendor
OF inyoluntary. iIcendinrispi in the household;
simply mop his blazing orb with ice water all
the while keeping the cOnfagration down a:
much as possible and within bounds.