e assembled,
like a lot of little fat porkers. It was, in truth, a sight to whet the
appetite of an "annexed" Fiji Islander, or any other carnivorous animal.
My correct card specified eighty "entries;" but, although the exhibition
only opened at two o'clock, and I was there within an hour after, I
found the numbers up to 100 quite full. The interesting juveniles were
arranged within rails, draped with pink calico, all arrayed in "gorgeous
attire," and most of them partaking of maternal sustenance. The
mammas--all respectable married women of the working class--seemed to
consider the exhibition of their offspring by no means infra dig., and
were rather pleased than otherwise to show you the legs and other points
of their adipose encumbrances. Several proposed that I should test the
weight, which I did tremulously, and felt relieved when the infant
Hercules was restored to its natural protector. The prizes, which
amounted in the gross to between two and three hundred pounds, were to
be awarded in sums of _10l._ and _5l._, and sometimes in the shape of
silver cups, on what principle I am not quite clear; but the decision
was to rest with a jury of three medical men and two "matrons." If
simple adiposity, or the approximation of the human form divine to that
of the hippopotamus, be the standard of excellence, there could be no
doubt that a young gentleman named Thomas Chaloner, numbered 48 in the
correct card, aged eight months, and weighing 33lbs., would be facile
princeps, a prognostication of mine subsequently justified by the event.
I must confess to looking with awe, and returning every now and then to
look again, on this colossal child. At my last visit some one asked on
what it had been fed. Shall I own that the demon of mischief prompted me
to supplement the inquiry by adding, "Oil cake, _or_ Thorley's Food for
Cattle?"

On the score, I suppose, of mere peculiarity, my own attention--I
frankly confess I am not a connoisseur--was considerably engrossed by
"two little Niggers." No doubt the number afterwards swelled to the
orthodox "ten little Niggers." One was a jovial young "cuss" of eleven
months--weighted at 29lbs., and numbered 62 on the card. He was a
clean-limbed young fellow, with a head of hair like a furze-bush, and
his mother was quite untinted. I presume Paterfamilias was a fine
coloured gentleman. The other representative of the sons of Ham--John
Charles Abdula, aged three months, weight 21lbs., and numbe