The Democrat. (Scotland Neck, Halifax Co., N.C.) 1884-1896, 1894-10-11
Fat and Lean.
Youths Companion.

Idt pCOpiC arc HuppocSh " x SoC0
natured, and yet it is well known that
they are much more sensitive about
| their bodily condition than extremely
| lean ones. Thin men are regarded a.
fair prey for jokers concerning very
tat people, care mustabe exercised But
French writer who has collected some
anecdotes Of fat people relates an au-
thenic incident OF Voltaire which
shows that he, at least, deeply resented
an unintended impu:ation on his ex-
| treme leanness.
Voltaire lived, in the old age, in his
chateau of Ferney. He was at this
time a mere living skeleton, with a
long nose, and intensely black eyes
peeping from beneath a wig. He took
great delight in certain tame young
eagle that he had about the place, and
which was almost as emaciated as he
was. One day this eagle became en-
gagged in combat with two young
cocks in the poultry yard, and was very
roughly handled.
Next morning as soon as Noltaire
made his appearance he asked Made
lene, one of the maids, how the eagle
was. The girl smiled and said
"He won't fight any more SIR
"What do you mean?"
"He's dead, sir"
"Dead and you announce the news
to me with smiling face !"
80 sir !" said the maid, still smiling,
he was so dreadfully thin-he might as
| we'll have been dead y
"Well, we'll !" exclaimed the philos-
opher "he was thin, eh? And conse-
quently might as we'll have been dead
And what about me? Are fat people
the ONLY ones who have a right to
| live?"
He was so angry that he discharged the
girl, but by ruse his sister, after some
weeks, got her back again. But Vol
taire never saw her about the house
without growing:
"Thin, Ell? And so l suppose I
should be killed because / am thin !"
It Is related that Napoleon L. VINO
was extremely thin in the early years
of his generalship, though he after
ward became somewhat stout, was once
present at bread riot during the last
days of the revolutionary period The
mob was led by an extremely stout
WOIIldII, wiz, SCClIlS JdI tC ttiN AAA''
staff ride up, called out to the mob:
"Down with the shoulder strappers !
Down with these chaps who feed and
fatten while the people are dying Of
hunger y
"Come, come my good woman" !"
said Napoleon, ''look at me, and tell
me which of us two is the fatter"
The laugh which followed disarm-
ed the mob much more completely
than cavalry charge could have done.
The same collection of anecdotes
records what it assumes to be the first
authentic cure of obesity. A powerful
French magistrate of the seventeenth
century, NJ de La Reynie, travelling
to Paris once from the country, fell in
with an enormously corpulent person
who was going to the capital tor two
reasons-to prosecute lawsuit and to
| reduce his obesity
Without revealing his identity, La
Reynie took the fat man to his own
house, and there-such things could be
done in those days-shut him up in II
single room, in which a loaf of coarse
bread and bottle of water were hung
by strings from the ceiling in such a
wav that when the man sprang up to
get them they could be jerked little
higher.
La Reynie kept the man here for
many days, stretching and jumping
for every bit Of food that he got, and
getting nothing but bread and water.
At length when the man was reduced
from corpulence to thinness, La Reynle
set him at liberty. He proposed to
have the magistrate arrested at once
but when La Reynie showed him pa