FAT BEAUTIES.
"The favourite queen of Duke Ephraim, of Old Calabar, was so large that she could scarcely walk, or even move; indeed they were all prodigiously large, their beauty consi-ting more in the mass of physique than in the symmetry of face or figure. This uniform tendency to enebonmint on an unusual 'cab, was ac- counted for, by the singular fitt.--t that the fiunale on whom his 3Ia5esty fixes his regards, is regularly fattened up to a certain standard, previously to the nuptial ceremony, it appearing to be essential to the queenly dignity that the lady should lie fat. We saw a very fine young woman undergoing this ordeal. She Was sitting, at a table, with a large bowl of farinaceous food, which she was
swallowing as fist as she could pass the spoon to and from the bowl and her
mouth."—Hobnan's Travels.
Duke EPHRAIM'S taste in female beauty is of' similar grossness to that of GEORGE the Fourth, with whom the contour of embon- point was the only line of beauty. The fat of the beauties of Windsor, to be sure, was not produced by so unsophisticated a process; neither was it so healthy; and the cost was incalculable. Had the Calabar system of fatting concubines been followed at a civilized court, too, there would have been a Master of the Royal Coop, a Storekeeper of Pinguidenous Food, with their deputies, assistants, clerks, and messengers, under the control of a Board of Regimen, or a Diet of Physicians ; in addition to Gold Stick, we should have had Silver Spoon in Waiting. The bowl of crowdie is equally efficacious, and much less costly. The proverb of "dining with Duke Humphry," has now a con- verse. Dining with Duke EPHRAIM, will henceforth be the po- pular phrase to characterize a hearty dinner, or the condition of an individual fat beyond his fellows.
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