There are no free citizens admitted, but
such whose employment has more immediately some relation to the table.
Husbandmen, smiths, millers, and butchers, live in their colonies, who,
when they have a belly of an unwieldy bulk, are promoted to be
burgesses; to which degree none were anciently admitted but cooks,
bakers, victuallers, and the gravest senators, who are chosen here, as
in other places, not for their prudence, riches, or length of beard; but
for their measure, which they must come up to yearly if they will
pretend to bear any office in the public. As any one grows in
dimensions, he rises in honour; so that I have seen some who, from the
meanest and most contemptible village, have, for their merits, been
promoted to a more famous town, and at last obtained the senatorial
dignity in this most celebrated city: and yet, when by some disease (as
it often happens), or by age, they have grown leaner than they are
allowed to be by the statutes, have lost their honour, together with the
bulk of their carcass. Their streets were paved with polished marble;
which seemed strange amongst a people so incurious, both because the
workmanship was troublesome, and there might be danger in its being
slippery. But the true reason of it was, that they might not be forced
to lift their feet higher than ordinary by the inequality of the
pavement, and likewise that the chairs of the senators might the more
easily be pushed forward; for they never go on foot, or on horseback,
nor even in a coach, to the exchange, or their public feasts, because of
their weight; but they are moved about in great easy elbow-chairs, with
four wheels to them, and continue sitting so fixed, in the same posture,
snoring and flabbering till they are wheeled home again.

At the four gates of the city, whose form is circular, there sit in
their turns as many senators, who are called Buscadores. These carefully
examine all who come in and go out, those that go out, lest they should
presume by chance to do it fasting, which they can easily judge of by
the extent of their bellies, and the matter being proved, they are fined
in a double supper: those that come in, to see what they bring with them
upon their return; for they must neither depart with empty stomachs, nor
come back with empty hands. Every month, according to the laws, which
they unwillingly transgress, there are stated feasts, at which all the
senators are obliged to be present, that after dinner (f