an in
prerogative and privilege. The burgomasters, like our aldermen, were
generally chosen by weight--and not only the weight of the body, but
likewise the weight of the head. It is a maxim practically observed in all
honest, plain-thinking, regular cities, that an alderman should be fat;
and the wisdom of this can be proved to a certainty. That the body is in
some measure an image of the mind, or rather that the mind is moulded to
the body, like melted lead to the clay in which it is cast, has been
insisted on by many philosophers, who have made human nature their
peculiar study; for, as a learned gentleman of our own city observes,
"there is a constant relation between the moral character of all
intelligent creatures, and their physical constitution--between their
habits and the structure of their bodies." Thus we see that a lean, spare,
diminutive body is generally accompanied by a petulant, restless, meddling
mind; either the mind wears down the body, by its continual motion; or
else the body, not affording the mind sufficient house-room, keeps it
continually in a state of fretfulness, tossing and worrying about from the
uneasiness of its situation. Whereas your round, sleek, fat, unwieldly
periphery is ever attended by a mind like itself, tranquil, torpid, and at
ease; and we may alway observe, that your well-fed, robustious burghers
are in general very tenacious of their ease and comfort; being great
enemies to noise, discord, and disturbance--and surely none are more
likely to study the public tranquillity than those who are so careful of
their own. Who ever hears of fat men heading a riot, or herding together
in turbulent mobs! No--no--it is your lean, hungry men who are continually
worrying society, and setting the whole community by the ears.

The divine Plato, whose doctrines are not sufficiently attended to by
philosophers of the present age, allows to every man three souls--one
immortal and rational, seated in the brain, that it may overlook and
regulate the body; a second, consisting of the surly and irascible
passions which, like belligerent powers, lie encamped around the heart; a
third, mortal and sensual, destitute of reason, gross and brutal in its
propensities, and enchained in the belly, that it may not disturb the
divine soul by its ravenous howlings. Now, according to this excellent
theory, what can be more clear, than that your fat alderman is most
likely to have the most regular and well-conditi