The Silver State

STARTLING GLUTTONY.

Monsters in Man Shape Discovered in Various Parts of the World.

The Hottentots, Bushmen and savage South African races generally are enormous gluttons. Ten of them, says Barrow, ate in my presence the whole of an ox all but the hind legs in three days, and the three Boesmans that accompanied my wagon devoured a sheep on one occasion in less than twenty-four hours.

In cold climates such feats as these would only be trifles, and Parry and Ross have recorded cases that, were they not well attested, would pass belief. Sir Edward Parry once tried the capacity of an Esquimaux scarcely fully grown, and this interesting young savage contrived, in twenty-four hours, to devour four pounds four ounces of the raw, hard-frozen flesh of a sea-horse, the same quantity of it boiled, one pound twelve ounces of bread and bread-dust, a pint and a quarter of rich gravy soup, a tumbler of strong grog, three wine-glasses of raw spirits and nine pints of water.

Sir John Ross, indeed, believed that the daily rations of an Esquimaux were twenty pounds of flesh and blubber, but, in extenuation of so enormous a consumption as this, the severity of the climate must be taken into account. Captain Cochrane, on the authority of the Russian Admiral Saritcheff, tells how one of the Yakuts had consumed the hind quarter of a large ox in twenty four hours, together with twenty pounds of fat and a proportionate quantity of melted butter.

As the man had already gorged himself in this disgusting fashion it hardly seemed possible that he could consume any more, but the worthy Russian Admiral, to test him, gave the savage a thick porridge of rice boiled with three pounds of butter, weighing together twenty-eight pounds. The glutton sat down to this abundant banquet, although he had just partaken of breakfast, and, without stirring from the spot or showing any sign of inconvenience, got through the whole. Captain Cochrane adds that a good large calf, weighing two hundred pounds, will just make a meal for four or five Yakuts, and that he has seen three of them consume a whole reindeer at one meal.

The feats of English working-men, on their annual club feast day would surpass belief; a leg of mutton has not been found too much for one man.

Dr. Darwin, the father of Charles Darwin, had the reputation of being a glutton; and is reported to have called a goose-a favorite Salop dish-an inconvenient one, as being too much for one and not enough for two.-Cornhill Magazine.