THE WEIGHT OF NOTED PERSONAGES.
Everything about sovereigns is of interest to the people. A while ago we were told that Kaiser William had changed his method of brushing his mustache, and this was actually cabled as news across the Atlantic. Now some one has been ascertaining how much the sovereigns weigh. The heaviest sovereign in Europe is Don Carlos I, of Portugal, who weighs 202 pounds. This is not at all an unusual weight. The late Bishop Peck weighed about 300, and perhaps his equal might now be found among the bishops. Ferdinand, of Bulgaria, weighs 177, and King Oscar, of Sweden and Norway, only one pound less. The German emperor’s average weight is 160 pounds, but like all excitable men, he varies a great deal. The Emperor Francis Joseph, of Austria, weighs 154; King Victor Emmanuel III, of Italy, 145; Leopold II, king of Belgium, 143; the Czar Nicholas II, only 121 pounds. John Wesley’s average weight was about 125 pounds; and Jay Gould, the financier and dealer in railroads, weighed less than 125. The queens seem to surpass most of the kings. Queen Victoria is said to weigh 190 pounds (we have seen this reported at 160), and the young Queen Wilhelmina, of Holland, 150 (she has not yet got her growth). The queen of Rumania, Carmen Sylva, weighs 180. She has quite a reputation as a poet. President Loubet, of France, would just balance the scales, with her on the other side. When we saw the little king of Spain, Alphonso XIII, looking at us out of a window of the palace in Madrid and waving his hand, he was then a small child, and could not have weighed more than twenty or twenty-five pounds, but he now weighs 99. The heaviness of weight is no sign either of physical strength or of endurance, nor does the want of weight, except when it is plainly caused by disease, indicate anything. The lightest of these kings can weigh very heavily upon human liberty, and bear down upon their people, even where there is said to be much freedom.