106be allowed. Every exit should be able to be used at

every performance. Extra exits which are supposed to beused only in cases of emergency are when the time comeseither found to be unusable or are not known to exist.

The Chicago fire, as do most calamities, gave rise to both

heights of heroism and depths of selfishness. There is no

need here to recapitulate the heroism of Mr. Foy, the actor,or of the Right Reverend - Muldoon, the Roman Catholic

Bishop of Chicago. The heartless conduct of the livery-stable drivers who being on strike refused to drive thedead and the injured to the hospitals seems incredible.If this report be true we do not think that Chicago willforget the occurrence in a hurry. Messages of sympathyhave already passed from His Majesty the King and fromthe official representatives of us Britons to our kin beyondthe seas and we can but add our condolences. The new

year opens mournfully for Chicago and the saddest featureof the catastrophe is that a large proportion of the victimsis made up of children.

"Quos dulcis vitae exsortes ....Abstulit atra dies."

THE FAT BOY OF PECKHAM.Mr. Hopkins, sitting at the Lambeth police court, has heldthat Johnnie Trundley, known to the public as the Fat Boy ofPeckham, when he appears for the purpose of exhibiting hisabnormal proportions upon a music- hall stage is not playingor performing for profit and that consequently his so appear-ing is not to be forbidden under the Act for the Preventionof Cruelty to Children, 1894. This decision should settlethe question of this obese infant’s education, for so long ashe can attract the curious to gaze upon him he will, presum-ably, be able to reside in the metropolis or to tour the

country according to his engagements in tt - ------ -

governess or a private tutor, instead of beinj Book Restorer’, ’

the care of the public education author.., . present, at all events, he will also be able to earn his living,and it is to be hoped that some portion of his emolumentswill be set aside to provide for the time when he mayhave passed the zenith of his fame. He is certainly achild of very unusual development, even for cases suchas his. In THE LANCET of July 19th, 1890, p. 161, wepublished the letter of a correspondent which gave thefollowing figures with regard to a boy aged five and a halfyears. Height, 4 feet ; weight, 8 stones 5 pounds ; circum-ference of abdomen, 42t inches ; waist, 37t inches ; chest,37 inches ; neck, 14 inches ; head 222 inches ; thigh,23 inches ; calf, 152 inches ; arm, 11 inches ; and forearm,10½ inches. We have not before us the particulars relatingto young Trundley, but as he was stated at the police-courtto be five years of age and to weigh 10 stones 4 poundsthey may be assumed to exceed those quoted. The attentionaroused by the Peckham child has nothing new or surprisingabout it. Every travelling showman would testify thatobesity has always been at least as highly appreciated bythe public as abnormal stature, and the youthful Trundleyhas had the advantage, or the disadvantage, of living inan age in which notoriety is easily achieved. Even in thesecircumstances it is doubtful whether his fame as wellas his vast proportions were not exceeded long beforethe days of halfpenny newspapers and cheap music-halls.He "cuts" " no "record" " in respect of size but is beaten inthat respect by popular heroes and heroines who flourishedmore than a century ago. The " Encyclopaedia Britannica," referring to an authority which we have not been able toverify, mentions a girl who at four years of age weighed over18 stones. In " Cursory Remarks on Corpulency " by WilliamWadd, surgeon, published in 1816, we find recorded thedeath of "the surprising Worcestershire girl" who at fiveyears old was 4 feet in height, 4 feet 2 inches round the

breasts, and weighed nearly 16 stone?. The same authorityalso mentions a seven-year-old boy in Paris who weighed15 stones 10 pounds. In the matter of fame it will be longbefore the name of Trundley surpasses that of Daniel

Lambert which has become almost a part of the Englishlanguage. Daniel was born at Leicester in 1770 and died in

1809 at Stamford. The grandson of a celebrated cock-fighterand addicted to sport throughout his life his dimensionswere not extraordinary and his habits were not different

from those of other lads until he was 14 years old. When 23

years of age, however, he turned the scale at 32 stones andalthough he is recorded to have been then able to walk fromWoolwich to London at the time of his death in his fortieth

year he had attained the prodigious weight of 52 stones

and was more or less helpless. He was a modest man andwhen he had achieved physical greatness fame was thrustupon him. He was for long unwilling to be made a show ofbut he gained a more than local reputation and peopletravelled from far to see him, resorting to various devices inorder to be allowed to do so. At lergth the prospect ofprofit overcame his resolution and for four years before hisdeath he exhibited himself in London and in the provinces.He was apparently a man of some wit, for once before hepermitted the public to gaze upon him an inquisitive personhad gained access to his presence by pretending to bea fellow sportsman interested in the pedigree of a mare,whereupon Lambert promptly replied, "She was bred byImpertinence out of Curiosity." In these respects, as wellas in his dimensions, he has set an example which MasterTrundley will not find easy to surpass. Before the days ofDaniel Lambert Edward Bright of Malden was a well-knownfat man, although his name no longer lingers as a house-hold word. He died in 1750 at the age of 30 years weighing42 stones 7 pounds and is stated to have been " an active

i2S 1999-2001 or two before his death, when his corpulency

id his strength that his life was a burden andhis death a deliverance." He was married and "left a

widow big with her sixth child." Both Bright and Lambertseem to have been genial, good-humoured felloes, very

popular among those who visited them ; indeed, popularityseems to be the lot of the corpulent in fact as well as infiction. The heroes of fiction, however, have the advantagein the matter of lasting glory and the names of Daniel

Lambert and the fat boy of Peckham sink into insignificancebeside those of Falstaff and the fat boy in " Pickwick." MORE SUBSTITUTION.FRESH disclosures appear almost every day in regard to

the expanding practice of substitution. Foo:1s, drugs, winesand spirits, and articles of clothing are all submitted to theimpudent process, and according to representations recentlymade to us by a large firm of makers of meat foods andextracts the same kind of imposition is being practised byselling as extract of meat a preparation of yeast. It is well

known, of course, that by a process of peptonisation an ex-tract may be made from yeast cells which resembles extractof meat in chemical composition. Thus such an extract con-tains albumose, peptone, albumins, and extractives, anddoubtless, on that account, possesses distinct nutrient value,but these facts can never justify the description of the pre-paration as extract of meat and it is infamous to state on thelabel that it is made from finest beef only. But surely thereis a remedy for such an obviously false description. Chemicalanalysis would appear to be able easily to bring the fraudto light since genuine meat extracts give no appreciablere-ult when added to alkaline copper solution, while

yeast extract gives an abundant precipitate of a bluish-white colour. To some extent this test enables an approxi-mate estimation of the amount of added yeast extract tobe made. When-and we are weary of asking the question,