Passing Events and Topics

GILBERTIAN possibilities are suggested by the announcement that Bavaria is to legislate against gluttons. We are not told what is to constitute gluttony within the law, nor whether the offence is to lie in excess of quality or of quantity. We picture the Restaurant Inspector, with his callipers and portable weighing-machine, operating on each customer before and after dinner, and his yet more terrible assistant in plain clothes, alert for too visible (or audible) appreciation of the fare. And what of the criminal who incites to gluttony? Fine and imprisonment may attend the friendly waiter who suggests that so-and-so is very nice to-day; the affectionate wife who would persuade her spouse to eat a little bit more will do