Evening star., 1909-05-05
FAT men BARRED OUT
Only Lean Ones Wanted for
This Government Job.
THEY APPLY IN NUMBERS
Must Watch the Thermometer in
Refrigerator Car.
EXAMINATION GOING ON TODAY
Candidates Toiling Over the Question
In One Of the Large Rooms in the
Pension Bureau Building.
THEY APPLY IN NUMBERS
EXAMINATION GOING ON TODAY

These are hard days for the fat men.
The government has begun to discrimi-
nate against them. Officially, too. Here
is the civil service commission holding an
examination today in which actually fat
men are barred.
Now, fat men. according to the leading
authorities on fat men, are just looking
for government jobs because fat men
think that government jobs are just the
kind of jobs. that are good for fat men
TO go to sleep on. And here is the gov
ernment shutting down on fat men and
giving printed instructions to the exam
iners in the civil service commission that
fat men had better keep to themselves
and not bother the government for jobs.
Such a Fine Summer Job.
And the finest summer job in the world
is open today. and scores upon scores OF
lean men swarmed into room 56 at the
pension office building to be examined for
1t. Think of the job-and be cool. 1t is
a job which consists in riding around the
country in a refrigerator car all summer
and just watching the thermometer to
see that the peaches don't get too blamed
warm.
Isn't that just the job for fat man
who has rolls upon rolls of fat upon him?
Think Of one of those men who have so
many double chins that the BARRIERS are
al loss when they are asked to shave
the chin, riding around with twelve
horsepower refrigerating engine going TO
beat the band and nothing to do but to
count the telegraph poles on the outside
and the icicles on the inside.
But no. DIR. Galloway of the bureau of
plant industry wants gentleman of Slen-
der physique to ride around in this cool
ing plant of a railroad car of his. be-
q haf mighty
tight sQueeZes between the chunks of ice
and the baskets of lemons and things on
which the government experiments. Or
course a fat man could lean against the
ice until he melted some of it away, but
that doesn't carry as much weight with
the doctor as it does with the fat men. A
whole lot of fat men have been disap-
pointed today because they were all
turned down. There was not room in the
civil service commissions building for the
examination to be held. and so the pen
sion Office, which is a large and spacious
place. was turned over to the applicants
Applicant for Another Place.
Such a lot of funny things happened,
too. There Is a watchman at the pension
Office who seemed to think that every
body who came in today wanted to take
the examination, and he eyed them we'll
with view to avoirdupois. A stout gen.
tleman who asked for the examining
rooms was told that the inquisition was
going on upstairs, but that he'd better be
on his way. because the cracks in the ice
were not wide enough for him.
go on said Fat Man, Il want to
take an examination for the job of land
law clerk That examination was going
on. too, and according to an eyewitness
there were just as many thin men after
that job as were after the real official
thin job.
Up in room So the thin chaps
were toiling away over a lot Of questions
pounds off a man on a hot day. thus
making 1t easier for the winner to get the
job because the thinner the man the
smaller the crack he can get into and
that's what the government wants. They
would not let anybody see the questions
that the examiners had given out. The
thin men crouched over their papers so
had to be very forward about peeping
over shoulders. OF course, If there had
been fat men taking the examination.
the broad shoulders would have hidden
the questions, but thin shoulders let the
papers spread out at either side and some
of them were visible.
For instance one question which was
discovered after peeping over the
shoulder contest, read:
How can you tell yourself from an
icicle after riding from Chicago to Butte
city in the refrigerator car.
And the answers, some of them at
least. showed great deal of study:
Because an icicle does not wear
pants
II can tell myself from an icicle be-
cause the icicle is even thinner than l."
by looking at myself in the glass;
There will be no difference"
And a lot more.