The Waterbury Democrat., 1934-09-28
In New York
Rv PAUL HARRISON

New York.--It is surprising that there are so many fat men in
 Manhattan. Scarcely anybody
 seems to go in for Gargantuan
 dining habits any more, and there
 are great many New Workers
 who scarcely eat at all, the em-
 ployment situation being what it
 is.
 Nevertheless, there are a lot of fat men, and thousands of them buy their clothes from Sigmund
 Klein. MT Klein is the proprie- tor of the Fat Mems Shop, which is down on Third Avenue and pretty far out of the way for over- size customers to go. Many of them don't go; they just telephone their orders. Others trade by mall from places as distant as Germany and Spain.
 Klein started his store there more than 40 years ago because l it was close to the Bowery, and the Bowery was filled with over- size bartenders and beer garden habitues. Prohibition brought an alarming letup in business, but Owney Madden's beer and the | speakeasy boom soon brought
 things back to normal. There were
 great many fat policemen. too, l but they have been weeded out during the last few regimes of skinny commissioners.
 Mir Klein himself is quite thin, l but he likes fat men; says they're almost all jolly and easily pleased. | If everybody was fat there
 would be no war" he says, quot ing some obese philosopher. 1 had hoped MT Klein would tell
 me about some of his customers that Irwin s. Cobb wears size 56
 shorts, or that F. Hal Sims has
 2o-inch collars. But MT Klein de- clined. He only revealed the di- mensions of his largest customer. a Mir X.-weight, 463 pounds;
 waist. 70 inches: chest GA inches; collar, 22 inches.
 THE WORST COMPETITOR Many of Mir Klein's customers are clients of Philadelphia Jack O'Brien. They go to Professor O'Brien in the hope that he can spare them the necessity of trad ing any more at the Fat Mems | Shop.
 What mean is that Philadel- phia Jack, who met and slaugh- tered many a good fighter twen- ty-five years ago, now is in the flesh-reduction game. His gym
 nasium is on Broadway, and from the big street comes most of his clientele--stage folk who have to | guard their figures, chorus girls
 with buiges instead of curves. Big
 aperatic stars and society people work out there too. The profess sor has had considerable social | prestige ever since he and Major
 Anthony J. Drexel Riddle used to travel around the country organ izing boys Bible classes.
 Major Riddle would make lit- | tie talk about how Christ was an athlete, and then the Major and | Philadelphia Jack would spar a | couple of rounds, and the boys would sign up for this new kind of two-fisted Christianity. Those were. the days when Teddy Roose- welt was, boxing in the White House and various he-men of the
 Social Register ere swapping
 democratic left hooks with plug uglies hired not to hit to hard.
 Major Riddle himself received his come-uppance at the fists of 8
 California heavyweight named Al
 Kaufman, who hadn't understood l the rules.
 Professor o'Brien, who still is
 straight and trim, is sad because
 business men don't wont to box
 anymore. They'll put on silly
 rubber garments and work them-
 selves half to death on trick ma
 chimes. But they won't don the
 gloves. They seem to realize that 1 the professor enjoys nothing so
 muck as seeking millionaires--in
 a nice. friendly way. of course.
 AN AUNT COMES VISITING The impending visit of saintly | maiden aunt from Iowa created
 a furor in the apartment of two girls, sisters, who live in Green wich Village. They threw out
 the gin bottle, hid their modern
 novels, foreswore cigarets. and 1 begged all their sophisticated friends to stay away for week. When the old lady arrived they accompanied her to church and prayer meeting, to- museums. a moral movie, and to a party where train pulled out the sisters con- graduated themselves that there had been only one slight incident l at which the aunt had been shocked--one evening, across the apartment courtyard, she had spied two men drinking from 8 suspicious bottle.
 A couple of days later the sis- l ters received a small package from the aunt. It turned out to contain a shiny police whistle on a red silk cord. Hang this be- side your bed" said the accom- panying note, "and use it in case 1 of effaereency