The Whig standard. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1843-1844, 1844-02-05
EXTRAORDINARY WAGER.

Barclays celebrated feat-celebrated feet, too,
if you will--of walking thousand miles in a
thousand successive hours, we considered to be
wonderful instance Of protracted endurance of
fatigue. But what will be said of the wager,
whose object we have to state, and for the truth
of which, in it's most important particulars, we
can vouch. The wager "came off, within these
three or four years; the parties to it are living,
and the winner has the honor Of appending +. Il.
s. to his name. I" / will bet any man one hun.
dred pounds" said one, "that he cannot make a
million strokes with pen and ink within month"
These, be it observed, were not to be mere dots
or scratches, but fair down strokes, such as form
the chd's first lesson in writing, and which even
the Rev. Sydney Smith, whose intellectual pow
ers are of no common order, has lately confessed
his inability to accomplish But all minds are
not for all things. A gentleman present, with
noble sef-reliance that augured success, gallant
y stepped forward, accepted the challenge, and
(having resolved to apply all his mental faculties
to the interesting task) at once laid in sufficient
stock of foolscap. The month allowed was the
lunar month, of only twenty EIGHT days; so that,
for the completion of the undertaking, an average
of thrty-six thousand strokes per diem was re-
qured. This, at sixty per minute, or three thou
sand six hundred per hour--and neither the hu-
man intellect nor the human hand could well be
expected to accomplish more--would call for ten
hours labor in every four and twenty! When
we reflect by how much this exceeds the time
daily devoted by Sir Walter Scott to the compo-
siton of his immortal fctions. some notion of the
gigantic nature of this task may be formed, as
well as of those powers which were brought to
lis accomplishment. But this is not all With
proper feeling of the respect due to the OBJ
servance of the Sabbath, the intrepid acceptor of
the wager determined to abstain from his work
on the Sundays, and although, by this determine
ton, he diminished by four days the period allow
ed him, at the same time that by SO doing he IN
creased the dayaverage of his strokes to upwards
Of forty thousand, there can be little doubt that
the consciousness of the proprety of this sacrifice
frequently cheered him in the course of his her.
culean labor On the first day he executed sbout
fifty thousand strokes, on the second day nearly
as many; but then his mind was fresh and I'M
wearied To say the truth, his mind never flag
ged at the last stroke of the million that re-
NAMED as bright and as vigorous as it was at the
first. But at length, after many days, the hand
became stiff and weary, the wrist swollen; and
it required the utmost constant attendance OF
some assiduous relation or friend to sprinkle it,
without interrupting it's progress over the paper,
with lotion calculated to relieve and invigorate
it. And 10, SO certain of success is well-directed
perseverance, the goal is attaned--the exploit is
achieved! On the three and twentieth day the
million strokes Exceeded by some few thousands
to snake assurance doubly surrey are accom-.
plished; and the piles sof paper that exhibited
them testify that to the courageous heart the
willing hand, and the energetic mind, nothing y
impossible. These interesting papers are mol
placed in the archives OF the Royal society," o.