HOW JESHURUN WAXED FAT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11520, 3 November 1900, Page 1 (Supplement)

HOW JESHUR UN WAXED FAT.

[by tohunga.] Cesar preferred to have fat men round him; the lean and hungry he averred to be Fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils. i Whether Mr. Seddon agrees with the ambitious Roman, it is somewhat hard to tell. For though he asserts that only the "fat" man objects to the £40 business, he himself is the Prince of the Clan, and evidently doesn't. Perchance, he has it in his mind to fatten all who gather round him in Parliament, so that they will all doze through languid sittings and not be inclined to play Brutus to his Caesar. , But seriously, or at any rate as seriously as it is possible to discuss adipose tissues, Mr. Seddon oughtn't to have drawn attention to the meat-weight of man. Those of us who tip the scale at fifteen stone; even those of us on whom weight rises and falls, according to our days and our doings; have hitherto looked upon him as a national exhibit of our merit. When we saw him sitting bulkily beside the Fijian chief, we felt that in every fold and lappet he did us credit. It was evident he came from a land flowing with milk and honey, where a Premier was never expected to unlace his own boots, and where a great chief was no more supposed to pull in the canoe than he is at Suva. We thought him proud of his hundredweights. He certainly looked proud in the photograph. And now— calmly turns round and tells us that " the ' fat' man has been at it again." As if we didn't know he had. But why put it ill that personal fashion? Whatever anybody may infer from his speech, Mr. Seddon is certainly not bad, because ho is "fat"—both physically and financially. It may suit him to pretend he is, but we all know better. Mr. Seddon, like everybody else in the world, is good or bad according as he does honourable or dishonourable deeds. And Mr. Seddon, like everybody else in the world, gets fat when he assimilates more nourishment than is necessary to counterbalance the physical energy he "expends. Given a good appetite, a healthy stomach, and a sound liver, civilised life is a struggle to keep lean. In new countries the soundest in wind and limb come to the top— get physically fat, the moment they are financially "fat" enough to relax the exhausting work which won them their place. Often they tire early, for it is the pace, not the distance, that kills, and take things easy, to their girth's distension. Or they" become set in some occupation which forces upon them physical lethargy with mental activity— grow like Jonahs gourd. This is what has happened to Air. Seddon— no sensible man would imagine him a scheming scoundrel for that. If we classed men by comparative weights, i as we do wool by length of staple, we should get a very interesting result. Five colonials out of six, in every walk of Me, in every class, in almost every calling, are .good, cross-country weights. There is very little wrong with the man who weighs from lOst at sft 6in to 12st at sft lOin, and up to 13st at 6ft. There is practically no underfeeding in New Zealand. _ There is comparatively little over-working. In town and country the great bulk of the people are well-fleshed and well-muscled, kept in training by sufficient work or sufficient exercise. Outside of this great fullweight class is an extra class on either wing— leans and the fats. The tat we have a type of in Mr. Seddlon. As mentioned, he can't help it. Moreover, if he were not a man of exceptional motive-power, possessed of more than the usual amount ot latent energy, he wouldn't have put it o*.. But nobodv really thinks that these qualities constitute crimes. Mr. Seddon doesn t really think so himself—how could he." • Then the lean! *'• Well, leanness m New Zealand results 10 times from disease.and once from overwork or underfeeding. 1-hose who inherit stomachs that do not readily assimilate food, will be lean though they swallow pearls. It is like Micawbcrs maxim:—lncome 20oz, expenditure 19£oz, result fatness; income 20oz. expenditure 20Aoz result leanness. What more can you expect'.' And the lean, being continually irritated by their unhappy stomach: and their sympathetic livers, have usually to fight hard with themselves in order to be ordinarily civil and commonly humane. That so many of them are never suspected of bearing a heavy cross, but pass their lives unnoticed among us, shows how patiently striving men and women can face the inevitable. But only those with intense willpower can overcome the handicap of starting with a boiler insufficient to keep the bodv under steam. Others go to the wall, particularly in crowded countries. Satisfied—as we all are—that the fault was not in themselves, they find a scapegoat in their opposite, the "fat" man. Everything that goes wrong, everything that displeases them, everything that 'is not to their fancy, they set dbwn to the "fat" man. But Mr. Seddon should not be a parrot to them. He is well, he isn't what you would call a thin man himself. Csesar would never suspect him of "treasons, stratagems, and spoils," not even if he saw him counting down the 40 pieces of gold. His weight is above suspicion. For all song and almost all story have insisted that the villain is lean and that the well-fed man can do no ill. It was to prove that it was possible to make a fat villain that Wilkie Collins designed his famous Count Fosco, in "A Woman in White." You will remember that Fosco is a foreigner, for not even Wilkie Collins could venture to break down completely the British domestic tradition that one can do almost anything with the lord and master after he has had a good dinner. These are topsy-turvy days as we all know, but not so topsy-turvy that ona ordinarily looks among the well-nou-rished ior thieves and assassins, or expects too much honour from those who, having failed completely in the outsida struggle for financial success, can slip their hands into the national pocket. For there is all the difference in the world between the poor politician who scorns riches, as did the Great Commoner, and the poor politician who has got winded in chasing the dollars, but hadn't strength enough to match his creed There is a wealth of wisdom in every adaptation of the famous teaching, in which lips the whole essence of Christian ethics : "Ho who hath looked upon .riches to lust after them has already committed the sin of avarice in his heart.

But it is possible that Mr. Seddon has been vaguely recalling his Sunday-school days, and has not Caesar in his mind at all. He may recall how fat Jeshurun kicked, arid jnay not conceive of any apter illustration to expose the enormity of objecting to the £40 business. Which was a daring thing of a modern Jeshurun to do, though such "fat" men are nothing if not courageous. The daringness of it you may realise for yourself if you recall the strong language of Moses the law-giver. For Jeshurun of old had been blessed more than most men. He had been raised in a drought-stricken country, and found his way, over sea, to one worth having. Thus : Ho found him in a desert land. And in the waste howling wilderness; He led him about. He instructed him, He kept him as the aptfe of His eye. So Jeshurun had! luck in mining ventures, and was on various mining boards. He knew a good thing when he saw it, and also when he tasted it. He got into Parliament, and was a big man generally. Thus: He made him ride on the high places of the That he might eat the increase of the fields; And He made him to suck honey out of the And oil out of the flinty rock; Butter of kme and milk of sheep. With fat of lambs, and rams of the breed or Bnslitin And goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat; And thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape. But after a time things began to wobble. Jeshurun thought he was the biggest thing in the universe, and that he could kick out the Auditor-General. Thus: But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: Thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, Thou art covered with fatness. And the end of it all you can read for yourself in Deuteronomy xxxii. The parallel as yet has hardly passed the kick- [ ing stage,