Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-12-24
More Fat Swind1ers
Than Lean Ones
Special Correspondence of The Star.

<<T EFT me have men about me that are
fat" Shakespeare makes Caesar
say to Mark Antony when confid-
| ing to him his mistrust of the lean and
| hungry Cassius. But according to Pa
| risian writer, it is the fat people VINO
| should be regarded with most suspicion.
| He has just written a book to prove
| that an abundance of adipose tissue, IN
| man or woman, far from indicating a
| frank honest, generous disposition, often
serves as a mask of rascality and cum
ming He cites numerous examples from
| contemporaneous French criminal annals
| to support his contention that the most
successful swindlers are generally fat
| people and that their victims among the
| lean are legion. Nine. Guerin Cesbron
| the heroine of the fraudulent matrimo-
NAL agency which has furnished the lat
est Partisan sensation, is as rotund as
beer barrel. Nine Therese Humbert,
| whose phantom millions long enabled fer
| to revel in the most costly luxurles, is
another of his examples of embonpoint
! combined with dishonesty. Boulaine, the
| banker who was gifted with such rare
| talents for transferring money from
other peoples pockets into his own, was
| a man of aldermanic proportions.
According to the French author, not
| only are fat folk more likely to be dls
honest than thin ones, but their obesity
renders it easier for them to perpetratc
frauds. This, he says, is because or the
| mistaken notion that rotundlty OF nsure
| is an indication that its possessor mas
clear conscience; whereas, In most
cases. it is the result of dealing dlshon-
estly with ones stomach. On the other
hand, the lean person, he contends. Is
naturally less disposed to be dlshone 81,
and because of the suspicion which his
slim figure arouses finds it harder TO
carry out financial swindles on a large
scale. After this exposure embonpo'ns
1 N
The next fraudulent female, to succeed.
| will have to be as thin as Sarah Befn-
| hardt.
X
Sad news comes concering Lieut.. Bilse,
| the author of I'm a Small Garrison Town.
1t is only a few years since this young
German officer startled the world with
| his book and it's truly wonderful reveal
| tons 1t will be remembered that be-
| cause of it's publication he had to leave
| his regiment and the army He retlret
| with his family to a suburb of Berlin,
| Zehrendorf, and tried to make living
writing other novels. But he fail
ure. Now word comes that he has dis
appeared leaving his family to the ten
der mercies of the world. His was a
moonlight fitting, and the police,
egged on by a swarm of creditors, are
seeking him. 1t is rumored that he has
gone to the United States with com
paniOn who is SAID TO De Il very cIid. III
ing woman but not his wife.
*
Judging both by past and present his
tory a sure way of securing an abnor-
NAL success for book is to have it re-
fused by about every publisher in town.
That has been the experience in the
many of the authors of great literary
successes. 1t is the story now of James
Baker. author of The 1nseparables,' for
he tells me that twenty-one publishers
in London read the manuscripts and re-
turned it to him with the briefest posi-
BILE notes of refusal Yet the novel has
just passed its third edition and is about
to go into a fourth.
Many valuables are to be offered at
the almost continuous auction sales held
this month at Sotheby's, but one of Ire
most interesting things will be Keats
will. 1t is written on a scrap of paper,
John Taylor, on August IA, 1920 The
document reads as follows:
my Chest of Books divide among my
friends. In case of my death this scrap
of Paper may be serviceahle in your
possession. All my estate, real and per-
sonal, consists in the hopes of the sale
of books published and unpublished. Now
I wish Brown and you to be the first paid
creditors-the rest is in nububus, but in
case it should shower, pay my Taylor the
few pounds l owe him.
X
Lord Lytton, Lord Crewe, James Bryce,
Prof knight and some dozen other distn-
guished men, at a recent meeting at the
house of lords formed an association for
the purpose of purchasing Coleridge's cot
tage for the nation. The cottage is at
Neither Stowey, in Somersetshire. in the IA
ooh Ctrfo
was only the tenant of this cottage for
few years, it is the only one of his resi-
dences which can now be secured for
memorial purpose. 1t was here also that
he composed and wrote all his finest poetry.
When the Louvre was partly burned In
1871 many precious manuscripts were ut
terly destroyed. Among these was Gull
laume Coletel's work. Lives of the French
Poets" This covered the period from 1903
to 1647. Every historian deplored the loss
of this priceless collection. The well-known
biographer, Ad. van Bever, believed that
many critics and editors must have copied
some portions of the work In their time. SO
he patiently searched for transcripts. After
years of untiring labor he has had wonder
full success. and has discovered copies OF
212 of the 442 biographies. Some are 100 or
more years old. They are about to be pub
lished at Paris in five octave volumes.
X
This is an iconoclastic age, of a truth.
One must not believe what one hears. and
only half of what one sees. Henri Hous-
sage has just destroyed the tradition of
Napoleon's old guard at Waterloo-Cam-
bronne's answer to the English summons to
surrender: THE old guard dies, but never
surrenders." Wellington's historic phrase,
"Up, guards, and at en- of course, has
been shattered, and have bushel so
of other equally historic phrases. Houssaye