One Policeman Who Couldn't Get Fat

1910

ST. LOUIS. — Dismissed from the police force because he was too thin to present a formidable appearance to offending humanity, John Higgins, although not one whit larger in circumference and just as tall as he ever was, has been restored to his job.

It was merely a question of the police board coming around to Higgins' viewpoint.

In the Dayton street district Higgins had a record which his superior officers declared any policeman should be proud of. He never shirked; was always on his beat; was a terror to evildoers, and loved police work as few patrolmen of St. Louis love it.

But the police surgeons didn't see it that way when Higgins came before them for examination. They cast a withering eye upon him, looked at each other and shook their heads.

Higgins was fired.

Not enough weight to so great an altitude was the verdict of the surgeons.

Encouraged by the plaudits of his superior police officers, Higgins went away to get fat. He ate often and abundantly, planning in a short time to return to the exacting doctor, and present a girth which any St. Louis patrolman might carry with pride.

After weeks of experiment, Higgins, feeling puffy, weighed himself. The scales registered the same number of pounds the surgeons had frowned upon. There was nothing to do but eat more, and Higgins ate.

But Higgins couldn't get fat. He told the Dayton street officers he just couldn't. They shared his sorrows, but shook their heads ominously. The same doctors who fired him for being too thin and too tall for such thinness would, they declared, keep him off the force now that it seemed he would never get fatter.

Determined to make A last deliberate effort to regain his position and resume his beloved work, Higgins knocked again at the door of the police department, The door didn't have to open wide for him to get in, he was so thin. All he wanted was just a little crack to squeeze through.

The board took cognizance of Higgins' thinness and of his inability to get fat. They said they thought he had been punished enough for being lean, particularly as he couldn't help it. There was evidently no malice aforethought in his attitude, they said.

Higgins was restored to his job. They said any man who worked that hard eating to get fat, would work hard at his duties as a police officer.