6z THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the perfection of indolence. All shepherds know that a very fat 

 ewe will not produce a strong lamb. 



Some Brahmans pride themselves on their obesity did one of 

 them ever run a race, or write a book? Chesterfield said that fat 

 and stupidity were such inseparable companions that they might 

 be used as convertible terms. "We should not be willing to indorse 

 that opinion exactly ; but, if he had said fat and inactivity, he 

 would not be far wrong though we have seen exceptions even 

 to this. But it is undoubtedly true as a rule. Carnivorous ani- 

 mals that have to earn their dinners are generally thin ; domestic 

 ruminants are fat. Animals shut up in cages either pine and die or 

 get fat. At Strasburg, famous for pdte-de-fois-gras, geese are shut 

 up in warm coops and overfed to produce the fat (and diseased) 

 livers so much admired by gourmets. In Italy, wealthy connoisseurs 

 are very fond of fat ortolans, and this is the device by which 

 they obtain them : They shut the birds up in a dark chamber, 

 (knowing that in their natural state it is their habit to feed at 

 sunrise). They then arrange artificial lights which can be cast 

 at will into the dark prison of the birds, on seeing which the orto- 

 lans immediately seek the food which is provided for them ; the 

 light is withdrawn, and they go to sleep ; after a few hours it is 

 again introduced, and so the process is repeated .five or six times in 

 the twenty-four hours, so that the birds are kept constantly feeding 

 or sleeping ; the consequence is, that in about three days the ortolan 

 becomes " a delicious ball of fat," and ready for the table. 



In the human being there is, however, a difference, just as there 

 is in the domesticated animals ; there is what is known as "good fat," 

 which must not of course be too redundant, and "bad fat." The fat 

 of the florid person may generally be classed with the good, that of 

 the flabby ansemiac with the bad: the latter is recognized in the un- 

 wholesome look of the chronic victim of alcohol. 



But, to turn from the purely physical aspects of adipose, we wish 

 to invite the reader's attention to a celebrated case of the impediment 

 of adipose in affecting the mental character, and the action or inac- 

 tion superinduced by this malady. 



One of Shakespeare's famous characters we should say perhaps 

 his supreme portrait is described thus with one dash of the pen : 



" He's fat and scant of breath ! " 



The character of Hamlet has suffered such constant distortion at 

 the hands of commentators, and has been made unintelligible and 

 mysterious through a very natural but fatal oversight, namely, the 

 habitual neglect of the annotators to take into the account the 

 physical organization of the Danish Prince an oversight which the 

 poet never made. He never failed to make the physique conform 

 to the character. 



