The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-09-29
THE BUG COUNTY FAIR.

ers today. But he lived before his time:
the age was not ripe for his doctrines
of weighing life in the balance; other
wise, as Sanctorious was of an inventive
mind he would have swelled the lengthy
list of patents with automatic stools and
chairs which would have rung an alarm
bell, like a burglar alarm or set a dam
ger signal, or still more effectively re-
moved temptation from gluttons who
might be disposed to partake too freely
OF the good things of the table, by aU-
tomatically causing the table to drop
through the floor, or cause the chair to
collapse or otherwise intimate that an
equilibrium had been established Sane
torlan restaurants would be TIE rage
where an expert Reconsideration
would weigh everyone on entering and
give an order for the exact amount of
food to be weighed out to each. Life
would become a heavy burden and hard
ly worth the living. The lean man would
be stuffed like a Strasburg goose, and
the fat man would be fed like goat on
a sand bank
Yet there are those today who put food
into their stomachs as if it were a grist
mill to be fed with so much corn, or
meat chopper, or a cider mill. They
analyze the elements of food and think
to combine 1t in the stomach and get
definite results as if the stomach We're
the beaker and alembic of the chemical
laboratory, forgetting to take into ac-
count the Wis vitaa, the intangible vital
force, which works in mysterious ways
and cannot be imprisoned or ''harnessed''
by the most skillful mechanic or trans
muted by the chemists rod.
If such enthusiasts would con-
tent themselves with formulating
the foods that are injurious and
those that are beneficial they would
benefit the world, but when they attempt
to promulgate the amount of a certain
food necessary, to a feathers weight
when they slice our bread and carve our
meat to hairs breadth, that is another
matter, for there are no laws of health
broadly speaking, such avs being only
general principles which must be modi-
he'd according to the individual.
No doubt there are some people who
have the opportunity to eat too much;
those who are not so situated think that
these gourmands are happy, but they
little know of the pangs of dyspepsia
Tor those who make a temple of their
stomachs in which they make all kinds
of sacrifices find too late that the god
of gluttons is leaden god that sits
hard.
There are others who also have indi-
gestion, but it is because they have too
little to eat They suffer from lack
OF food, and the empty stomach, having
no food to grind, grinds itself, wasting
away It's substance and impoverishing
the miller.
Yet as the poor are in the vast ma
Jorlty over the rich, the vital question
seems to be how much can a man eat
and live? Cornaro lived fifty-eight years
on twelve ounces of solid food Chiefly
vegetable) and fourteen ounces of light
wine day; Thomas Wood, the miller
of Billericay, throve eighteen years upon
sixteen ounces of flour a day, made into
pudding with water. But these are ex-
ceptions to the rule and such a limited
bill of fare belongs to the order of the
strange and marvellous things that are
to be wondered at, but not initiated.
So called "fasters have gone one bet
ter than Ccrnaro, and others have claim
ed that they lived on nothing at all but
their true history Is not encouraging to
| the economical. The famous Welsh fast
ing girl first deceived her PARENTS they
found her out, but thought she would
make money for them by deceiving the
! public. So she did, for period of two
| years two months and one week. and 1t
was the one week that finished her.
A strict watch was kept for seven days
and she died. In fact, the father and
mother were tried and convicted of
! manslaughter by criminal negligence, and
the medical men who superintendent the
investigation narrowly escaped conviction
! on the charge of killing and Staying
Sarah Jacob" DIR. Fowler was of the
opinion that She was a night feeder
and there was suspicion that she con-
cealed pint bottle under her left arm
pit, which was sufficiently hollow for that
purpose.
Ann Moore, of Tutbury, was another
fasting fakir. She deceived the public
SO well that She invested $1,000 in two
years, the proceeds of donations by SYM
pathetic visitors. Her story was lat
she ate no food because she had taken