Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 53, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 September 1889 — Made Fat in Five Minntes. [ARTICLE]

Made Fat in Five Minntes.

One of the moet amusing and a* touching of pantomine tricks eves originated was that of the fat man, which was done by the Ravels. On# of the actors in the pantomine sit# at a table and ravenously eats dish after dish of food that a servant brings to him. Presently the man who, like most ravenous eaters, was rather thin and scrawny, begins to grow plump. His clothes fit him snugly. His waistcoat steadily swells out under the very eyes of the audience. All the while he is eating like asuusage machine. In a few minutes he has grown to be a giant, eight or nine feet tall, and with the portions of an inflated balloon. The sight always brought forth roars of laughter. It is comparatively easy to produce it after you know how. The food eaten is all “property food,” made of tissue paper, that the actor chews up into little balls and takes out of his mouth. whenever occasion offers. His clothes are all of rubber and made to fit air-tight around the wrists and neck. In sitting down he puts the heel of one boot over a little trap in the stage. An assistant below couples a tube running from a bellows to a hole in the boot heel. Then he blows him up. It must ,be rather unpleasant sensation to the actor to feel that he is nothing more than a wind bag; but actors are made to suffer. By the time that the suit has grown so Big that the inhabitant has to have a a lantern to move around in it, the wind supply is cut off and the boot heel plugged up. Then by an ingenious arrangement of springs under the actor’s feet the height is acquired.