Wheeling Register

The Jolly Fat Men.

Annual Gathering of Heavy Weights at Gregory's Point—A Giant Repast Demolished.

From the New York Herald.

Down at Dorlon's place, on Gregory's Point, where the Norwalk river enters Long Island Sound, a peculiar atmospheric phenomenon was observed yesterday, as it has annually been for thirteen years past. The air suddenly became surcharged with a savory aroma, that made coasters smack their lips and landsmen hurry on their "Sunday-go-to-meeting" clothes. There was fish in that scent, and fowl and green corn, and sweet potatoes, and spices, all intermingled, but pervaded throughout by a flavor of clams. It meant that the Fat Men's Association was down for its annual bake, and that edibles in that section were going to speedy havoc.

The feeders came by the ton. There were wagons from New Haven with creaking axles, and horses that Bergh would have pitied; carryalls from the interior that for the nonce became carry-ones, and trains with engines that snorted from fatigue. But it was the steamer Laura M. Starin that had the hardest work to do. She was freighted with the New York and Jersey fat men, and the wonder is how she held together on the trip.

Happily there was no mishap, and pounds of adipose humanity beyond calculation were put ashore and waddled and floundered around and made merry in a way that only fat men are capable of. It was a cure for dyspepsia to see those rosy faces glow and those mountainous cheeks heave when their owners said funny things or enjoyed other people's funny savings.

Every one also seemed to be hungry, and in that savory atmosphere there was good cause for it, and good prevention, too, as witness the contents of the larder. Seventy-five bushels of clams, three barrels of sweet potatoes, 1,500 pounds of fish, 4,000 ears of corn, 1,400 pounds of lobster and 1,000 chickens.