vens! the ill of the world is not party of twelve Bantings would repletion, - it is emptiness; and take fully a week's hard work, both

, all the other fat men are running chemical and culinary. Now, judgabout in their own pluffy and ing from the man's book, I suspect breathless manner, asking, What that he and eleven more like him about malt? How is it as to choco- would be dear at the price. late ? Are anchovies bad for me? From Falstaff downwards I have Must I cut off my stilton ? To ever liked fat men; they are all to these I say, Let me be your doctor. nothing the pleasantest fellows that Retrench your all-absorbing self- walk the earth. They are genial by interest. Turn your thoughts from force of temperament; and there your duodenum to the famishing is neither ungenerous sarcasm in creatures who peer down through their drollery nor malice in their the railings of your areas at the wit. They look, besides—and let

. blazing fire in your kitchen-grate. me tell you it is no small thingGive up this filthy selfishness that they look as if they enjoyed life; takes for its worship all that is while " that lean and hungry least worthy in humanity. Walk, Cassius" is a perpetual protest ride, bathe, swim, fast if you against pleasantry. His drolleries

, must, but take your thoughts off are all dyspeptic, and his very laugh this detestable theme; and try to is an estopper on fun. Why, in the remember that the subject you want name of all good-fellowship, diminto popularise is in its details one of ish the number of these? Is the the coarsest that can be made mat- world too enjoyable !-is society ter of conversation.

really so intensely amusing that it To take the matter in its less is necessary, even at the cost of our serious light, how is society to be very flesh, to curb our wit and recarried on if Bantingism is to strain our brilliancy? I have no prevail ? Are we to weed our ac- complaint of this kind to make of quaintance of all the fat people, and the neighbourhood about me. I never know any one above ten stone am free to say there is no plethora eight ? or are we to divide our din- of agreeability that wants to be deners into fat days and thin days, pleted. Mr Banting's experiences

, having all the grampuses one day, are possibly different; but if so, all the sword-fish on another? This I'd rather he'd tell me where he latter measure will be forced upon us, lives than what he eats — with for how otherwise shall we feed our whom he associates, and not what Bantings ? To invite them to an he avoids in diet. ordinary repast of fish, flesh, and The glorious exuberance of the fowl, would be as rank an awk- fat man is not merely physical ; it wardness as to ask Cardinal Wise- extends to the operations of his man to a beef-steak on a Friday. brain and the tricks of his fancy. You cannot, of course, place before It is out of his rich abundance that your guest what he would deem he gives you his drollery. Tell me little short of a poison; and how an anecdote or a good mot, a racy are you to eliminate all the carbon reply or a witty rejoinder, and I'll out of your sirloin, the ozone out stake my reputation or half-a-crown of your vegetables, gelatinous mat- --- whichever you think best of ter out of your veal, and saccharine on it, that I'll tell you whether it ingredients out of your pudding? If was a fat or a thin man was the one couldn't afford to have Faraday author. There is a mental breadth in the kitchen, there will be no do- in the fat man, a width in his ing this. Analytical chemistry is not toleration, a glorious sense of easy a very speedy performance, besides; absorption about him, that make and if this system be pursued, it him infinitely more companionable will take at least two days to pre- than a thin man. pare a very humble meal; and a When a friend of mine-who

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told me the story-once met Syd- true. We did try it (at Sebastopol), ney Smith at Brighton, where he and it reduced us uncommonly; and had gone to reduce by the use of though we have contrived to get certain baths in vogue in those up our flesh since, we are forced to days, he was struck by the decrease own that we are not as strong as of Sydney's size, and said, “You we used to be! are certainly thinner than when I Now, I repeat this may be the saw you last.” “Yes,” said he; true reading of the Banting epistle, “I have only been ten days here, and I am the more ready to believe but they have scraped enough off it to be such that there are touches me already to make a curate.' of true kindliness and honest phil

And so it is, the imperceptible anthropy in the pamphlet, which waste of fat men is equal to a thin would ill accord with a theme of one ; and once again I say, it is of mere selfishness. these they would rob us. Why, I am a very poor exponent of they are the very marrow of hu- symbolic influences; but it would manity.

give me sincere pleasure to go over Possibly, however, I have been Banting with Dr Cumming, whose all this time unjust and unfair to aid in tracing the clues to the imaMr Banting, and what I deemed a gery would be invaluable. Bantpersonal narrative was only a par- ing explained, with reference to the able. Has Mr B., while speaking ‘GREAT CORPULENCE COMING,' of himself, been really describing would be a taking title, and I throw the state of England ? Is this it out as hint to “ the trade.” plethora-this over-abundance, this One word more. If there really bursting prosperity, this unwieldy be people with so much disposable size, this unmanageable mass—the time on their hands, and so much Nation ? Are all his counsels ad- redundant fat on their ribs, as Mr dressed to a people who have given Banting, and who eagerly desire to themselves up to repletion, and reduce, let me recommend to them think of nothing but growing fat- a far simpler and easier process than ter? Is the carbon of which he the complicated chemistry of this warns us our coal-fields, whose ex- gentleman's book. There is a little haustion he forebodes ? When he volume-I have it now before me speaks of saccharine matter, is it a --called 'A Summary Account of hit at Gladstone about sugar ? In Prizes for Common Things,' ofthis prohibition of beer does he fered and awarded by Miss B. want a repeal of the malt-tax, like Coutts at the Whitelands Training the virtuous old ladies who gave up Institution. In this valuable treasugar in their tea to put down the tise, which may be called The Antislave-trade ?

Banting,' the problem is, not to Is the “going down-stairs back- subdue the increase of flesh, but wards” an emblem of that painful how to subsist on the smallest step-by-step progression in which, modicum of food ? how soup is while we go lower and lower, we to be made with the minimum of have not even the small courage re- meat ? how vitality can be mainquired to look at what we are com- tained with the very least possible ing to ?

assistance from external aid ? In the remark that our size un- Amongst the variety of receipts in fits us for places of amusement,'

this volume there is one we recomand that “ we take up more space

mend to Banting. It is a soup comthan our neighbours like to accord posed of what the writer calls the us, Mr Banting is only repeating cheapest part of a cow—the fore what French newspapers are daily vein, which lies between the neck and telling us.

the shoulder, and is of an irregular Last of all, as to the “ Turkish shape. “ The soup made from this, Bath,” what he says is perfectly with barley, carrots, and an onion,

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is excellent.” Now I say here you

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Nor can I omit an invaluable have no complications about osma- suggestion at page 46, not alone zone or the phosphates; not a word admirable in its relation to diet, is there of adipose matter, nitro- but with an ethical inference that gen, or that fell ingredient, sugar. deserves commemoration : “Whey, Let the Bantings sit down to this the liquid left after making cheese, every day at one o'clock as their is a nutritious drink for children. principal meal, and I warrant them When in large quantities, it will they'll be as slim in three months materially assist in fattening—the as the prize labourer who invented Pigs!” the compound. There is another Now, as I have taken some pains receipt for a broth to be made of to show where these culinary treawhat the writer calls" a sheep's sures are to be found, I trust Bantpluck," and pluck is exactly the ing and his whole house will try quality the eater of it would re- them. As to the contributors to quire. And there is also, at page the volume itself, I observe that in 203, “a cheap and nourishing dish most household expenditures there without meat,” which it would be is a weekly penny dedicated to pea downright pleasure to set before riodicals. Might I ask a preferBanting every day for a month, and ence, and humbly hint, in return have his report on its nutritive qua- for my own small services here exlities. Not to seem cruel, however, erted, that they would take in Corny I should allow him “beef-stickings' O'Dowd, whose second volume will (see page 35) on Sundays.

shortly appear in print?

HYBRID CONSERVATISM.

I have had it on my heart for as long as he likes ; but if we find many a day to protest against a race that the oddity we had endured, of politicians who have much an- perhaps out of a compassionate noyed and not a little troubled me leniency and kindliness towards

-a class of men, who in the very an individual, is to become an enabsence of all convictions, assume demic tendency through a neigha sort of especial claim to fairness, bourhood, we naturally grow unand who would like to pass off their easy. We can endure one infatuthorough cold bloodedness for the ated performer on the bassoon, but true and proper temperature of the if the whole street or the crescent political body. I mean those Hybrid take to it, the affair is serious. This Conservatives who profess to believe is exactly what has happened. A in their own party, but always vote few very crafty men discovered with Lord Palmerston — men who some time ago that what between would like to pass the morning in the growing indifference to "party" the Reform Club, and dine every outside the House, and the few day at the Carlton. A few years questions which separated the two back they were three or four, now sides within it, it might be posthey are a distinct section. If sible, by the exercise of caution England were not, par excellence, and 'adroitness, to give a certain the land of “Sham," such a class support to each in turn, by which, would never have presumed to without formally breaking with stand forward and declare their their friends, they might greatly opinions. In a country so full of conciliate their adversaries, and crotchets we are naturally tolerant thus, while very materially serving of our neighbours' eccentricities; their personal interests, acquire that and if a man does not do actual grand character for fairness, by mischief with his hobby, we are which, once attained, every platitude always disposed to let him ride on a man utters becomes wisdom, and

the dreariest trash he delivers to settled plan of personal advantage his constituents is listened to as and advancement a character with the quintessence of good sense and the world for impartiality and scruhonesty.

pulous honour. These men desire “I declare to you frankly”—Oh, to be Conservatives on a sort of how I dread that frankly!—“I de- limited liability. They remind me clare to you frankly, gentlemen, of the Irishman who presented that my sentiments are still as himself before his priest to get they have ever been a steady married ; but, instead of the five resolve to maintain our time-hon- shillings, the appropriate fee, could oured institutions, so as to hand only produce half-a-crown. After down to our children unimpaired vainly employing all his eloquence the glorious heritage we have re- to melt the priest's heart, he sudceived from our ancestors. Though denly stopped short and said, no man will ever be more ready “Well, see then, y'r rivirence, the than myself to uphold, and if need divil á sixpence more I have, so be to defend, the great constitu- marry me as far as that goes !” tion of these realms in all the in- This is exactly the way they want to tegrity of its strength, and all the be Conservatives—“a cheap bargain equipoise of its power, yet I do and a road out of it," is the sum and think”-great emphasis on thedo— substance of what they aim at. May " that, balanced as parties now are, I ask what sort of constituencies situated as England is with respect like to be thus represented ? There to foreign nations, charged as we is not one word of exaggeration in are with the mighty responsibilities what I have said. I appeal to the that attach to the rule of one-eighth speeches the newspapers have been of the inhabitants of the globe,-I so drearily crammed with for the say, gentlemen, I do think we can- last three months to corroborate not do better than follow the time- But indeed if there be people honoured statesman, who, though who listen with pleasure to the seated on an adverse bench, is the speeches, they may, by a parity of steadfast upholder and defender of absurdity, think well of the speakthe honour of England. Iknow Lord Palmerston, gentlemen-I know Now, Lord Palmerston is not a him well; and with whatever credit great artiste—but a réchauffe of my character may lend me, I de- him is too much for any human clare to you he is the steadfast and stomach, and yet they give us nouncompromising upholder of," &c. thing else. Who is not sick of the &c. &c.

praises we bestow on ourselves for Now, I don't object to these ex- not going to war-when war was tramural bleatings at all. There the very last thing in our thoughts? are very few airs on the political Who is not weary of hearing how fiddle, and if we are fond of the beautifully we kept out of the music, we must put up with the American conflict-the “fratricidal “ Da Capos." I only want that slaughter," as they call it? I wish the tune should be performed by any one would tell me which is the right men. Let not Archbishop Cain, and which Abel. I only M'Hale bum, "Croppies lie down, know that their mother might be and tell me it is a Canticle.

ashamed of them both. Vote with Lord Palmerston, and Who, I beg to ask, is taughtwelcome; only don't acquire the who is instructed — whose knowright to do so by a juggle and trick: ledge is enlarged, by these frothy don't palm yourself off on a Con- outpourings? They are very laservative constituency as a man of mentable spectacles, these “visits their party, to desert that party to our constituents.” I trust ferwhen the day of trial has arrived; vently that the men who make and, above all, do not build upon a these speeches approach the hu

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miliation in a spirit of proper self- pair that support John Brightmortification. I ardently hope that I'm his man. “P.S.-Any gentlethey feel it to be a day of sack- man taught ‘Bernal Osborne' in cloth and ashes; and indeed, if two lessons. Persons whose educaangels could be supposed to weeption has been neglected made perfor members of Parliament, they fect 'Roebucks' in one. A line, might shed some tears for such addressed Cornelius O'Dowd, to the misery.

care of his Publisher, will be immeWhy, in this age of universal diately attended to. None treated literature, has nobody thought of with except principals; the strictest skeleton speeches for sucking poli- secrecy observed.

I promise you, ticians ? The parsons have got constituencies will benefit by the skeleton sermons, wherein they change. As a respectable tradessupply the “padding" themselves, man, who wants to extend bis cusand the blandest disciple of high- tom, I'll not sell them any castand-dryism, or the sternest de- off wares, nor vamp up any stale nouncer of mundane enjoyments, Joe Millers. Never a word shall can fit himself in a moment. I am they hear from me about that told, too, that since Bishop Co- strange beast, the Civis Romanus, lenso's defection, discourses can be of which the Zoological Garden bas had in which Joshua is treated not even a specimen. I'll neither pretty much like the author of bully the French, nor flatter them. Junius,' so that, in reality, no I only bargain for one plagiarism. shade or tint of opinion need have If it be a Whig oration, I must wind . to look far for an exponent.

up with a few words for “.the gloI wish some enterprising pub- rious harvest." This, you will adlisher would engage me in the task; mit, is fair. The Whigs have ripened and I bind myself to supply "the the wheat ever since the Reform trade' on the most reasonable Bill, and we ought to be grateful terms and the shortest notice. to them. Newspaper adulation, in

Mr Moses fits his clients in York- a tone that must be ineffably offenshire or the Land's End by a few sive to the ears it was intended to general measurements—the width charm, has invented the phrase the of the shoulders, the girth at the “Queen's Weather." waistband, the length from the hips, gest the propriety of exchanging the &c.

Now I promise, on equally term “ Harvest Moon” for the brief information, to send off by “Pam. Quarter;" so that, while we the night-mail a true-blue address, replenish our granaries, we should

a Whig “apostasy," or a Radical remember the Government. “rouser,” done in a true, finished, The Conservatives have many and workmanlike manner. I re- faults—they have done much they memb a friend of mine, to whom ought not to have done, and omitNature had not been gracious in ted some things they ought to have muscular development, having once done; but in nothing have they to perform a part in a private play erred so egregiously as in tolerating where tight-fitting pantaloons were within their ranks these men of rotessential. He addressed himself ten allegiance. Nor was it mere to one of the minor theatres for toleration, but they have actually counsel, and the costumer, to whom gone out of the way to conciliate his case was referred, immediately them. This attempt to widen the called out, “Ah, sir, I see it at base of a party by greater liberality, once; you want Mr Matthews's as it is called, is often very fatal. legs. Fetch them down, James." You may beat your guinea too thin.

Now, if any country gentleman And who, I ask, were these people wants the Palmerston legs, or, more for whom you made these sacrifices ambitious still, the Gladstone—or —not only of opinion, but of conshould he ambition the sturdier science ? Was there one really able

Let me sug