little not water. In a hundred parts of human
fat, there are seventy-nine of carbon, fifteen
and a fraction of hydrogen, and five and a
fraction of oxygen. But water is nothing
but the protoxide of hydrogen; and hydrogen
is one of the main elements of fat.
Therefore, the aspirant after leanness, must
eat but few vegetables, or watery messes, or
hot-rolls, puddings, tarts, potatoes, haricots,
pease-soup, charlottes, sweet biscuits, apple-
rolls, nor cakes in any of their protean forms;
because all those dainties have carbon and
oxygen for their principal bases. If he will
persist in living on leguminous, farinaceous,
and liquid diet, he will make fat as certainly
as the bee makes honey by sucking flowers.
Chemistry tells us that the principal base
of meat is azote, which does not enter
into the composition of fat; while the
principal elements of fruits, sugar, flour, and
starch, are carbon and hydrogen, the elements
of fat. Human fat is found ready-made in
certain aliments which are not flesh, as in
olive-oil and in all the oleaginous seeds. If
you live principally on lean meat, you will
not fatten so fast as those who follow a regimen
composed of carbonic and hydrogenic
bases.

It may be objected to this theory, that
butchers and butcheresses are in general fat;
because (as is taken for granted), they live
on meat. But inquiry will prove that the
premises are false. Butchers and their wives
(as any one may learn by taking the trouble
to inquire), dislike meat. When they do eat
flesh, they prefer poultry; but they are much
better pleased with a meal consisting of fish,
vegetables, pastry, or even bread-and-cheese;
besides which, they drink copiously. The
supposition that they imbibe their fat from
the flesh-laden atmosphere in which they live,
is a hypothesis which remains to be proved.
What is the best fatting diet for pigs? Barley-
meal and milk, assuredly, and not flesh,
although pigs eat flesh greedily. What made
Louis the Eighteenth so enormously fat?
What, but his passion for mealy potatoes?
While carnivorous animals—lions, tigers,
and wolves—are never fat.

To aid you in shaking off your super-
abundant fat, other means besides diet may
be brought into action. Overladen sufferers
ought to take internally certain substances
which aid in the decomposition of fat. The
alkalis, for instance, combining with it, form
soaps. You may thus establish a home
manufactory of real brown Windsor, and other
fancy articles. Such alkalis, administered in
ordinary doses, never produce inconvenience;
they increase, rather than diminish the appetite,
and thus favour the decrease of fat.
Soap pills have been prescribed, for ages
past, to cure obstructions of (i.e. fat in) the
liver. The Vichy waters are recommended
for the same purpose: and it is by the
portion of alkali still left free in the soap pills,
and by the same alkali in the Vichy waters,
that obstructions of the liver are removed.
Dr. Cullen, in his Elements of Practical
Medicine, relates that a physician named Fleming,
sometimes succeeded in reducing
embonpoint by prescribing soap pills. Another
English writer speaks highly of alkaline
baths as an antidote to obesity; while a
French practitioner records a case of emaciation
resulting in a very stout lady from the
use of carbonate of soda and soda-water
which she was ordered to take with a different
object in view.

You will understand that alkalis alone will
not deliver you from your burden of fat. If
by your diet you take in as many grease-
making elements as the alkali drives out,
things will remain in their old condition, the
supply being equal to the demand. Even
when living exclusively on meat, you may
spoil all by drinking too much. The absorbtion
of the smallest possible quantity of
liquid is an indispensable condition, whether
in the form of food, drink, or baths. A moist
atmosphere even encourages the growth of
fat: some people become sensibly heavier in
muggy weather. As a warning, be it
mentioned that draughts of vinegar and other
acids produce leanness (when they do not
cause death) only by deranging the general
health through the injury they cause to the.
digestive canal. Many young persons have
fallen victims to the marasm brought on by
daily doses of vinegar taken with the object
of making themselves thinner. A persistence
in drinking strongly acidulated lemonade as
a habitual beverage, for the same purpose,
has proved scarcely less injurious. As to
slight doses of tincture of iodine, or iodide
of potassium, to diminish fat, they may be
described in one word—POISON.

The great comfort is, that fat folk now
need not go and hang: for drown they cannot.
Ladies and gentlemen who have not seen
their shoe-strings for years, may still hope to
see them yet. Twenty stone need be no
solid ground for despair. Mortals grown to
the proportions of a Stilton cheese have yet
returned to the aspect of humanity. Listen,
all ye disconsolate situation seekers, who are
unable to advertise yourselves as without
incumbrance!

Monsieur Guenaud, master baker, of the
Rue St. Martin, Paris, at the age of twenty-
eight was not quite four feet high. He grew
so fat that he could scarcely waddle. As soon
as he made an attempt to walk, he was
overcome by the oppression of his own weight.
If he remained long in a standing posture,
he was seized with violent pains. He could
not follow his business; he could not lie down
in bed; he could not wear a hat without
turning giddy. Had he seen the Regent
diamond lying on the pavement in the street,
he would not have dared to stoop to pick it up.
The poor man thereupon took to bleeding
and purging, to sorrel and spinach, to plenty
of bread and water and no meat, only to