The river press. [volume] (Fort Benton, Mont.) 1880-current, 1880-12-15
WEN OF STRONG MUSCLES.
Some OF The1r Famous Feafs OF Strength.

was crowned with laurels and loaded down
with wealth and honors. When Egenetus,
in the ninety-second Olympiad, triumphar t
IN games, entered Agrigentum, his native
home, he was attended by an escort Of three
hundred c%hariots, each drawn by two white
horses, and followed by the population,
cheering and waving banners. Milo six
times won the palm at both the Olympic and
Pythian games. He is said to have run a
mile with a four-year-old OK upon his SHOULD
ers, and afterward killed the animal With one
blow Of his fist, and ate the entire carcass il
one day So great was his muscular power
that he would bind a cord around his head and
break it by the swelling pressure of bis veins.
An ordinary meal for Milo was twenty
pounds of meat, as much bread. and fifteen
pints OF wine.
Polydamus, Of Thessalia, was of colossal
height and prodigious strength, and, it is
said, alone and without weapons, killed an
enormous and enraged lion. One day, it is
recorded, he seized q bull by its hind feet,
and'the animal escaped only by leaving the
uOOl LII tnC grasp Ol tIG dtulttG.
The Rom y emperor Maximus was up
ward Of eight feet in height, and, like Milo
of Crotona could squeeze to powder with his
fingers and break the leg Of q horse by a kick.
His wife's bracelet served HIM as a ring, and
his every day repast was sixty pounds of
meat and an amphora Of wine.
While a prisoner in Germany, Richard I.
accepted an invitation to q boxing match with
the son Of his jailor. He received the first
blow, which made him stagger, but, recover
ing with a blow of his fist he killed bis an
tagonist on the spot. Tophan, also an En-
glishman, born in ITO, was possessed Of as
tonishing strength. His arm-pits, hollow in
the case of ordinary men, where with him
full of muscles and tendons. He would take
| a bar of iron, with its two ends held in his
hands, place the middle Of the bar behind his
neck, and pend the extremities by main
force until they met together, and bead back
the iron straight again. One night seeing the
watchman asleep in his box, he carried the
man and his she'll to a great distance, and put
them on the wall OF q church yard. Owing
to domestic troubles, he committed suicide
in the prime Of life.
The famous sanderberg, king Of Albania,
who was born 1414, was q man Of great
stature, and his feats Of sword exercises. have
never been equalled. On one occasion with
his eimetar, he struck his Antagonist such q
blow that its force cleaved him to the waist.
He is said to have cloyen in two men who
were clad in arn1or from head to foot. On
one occasion the brother and nephew Of a
certain Ballaban, who had beea convicted Of
c~ruelties toward the Albanians, were brought
to him bound together. Transported with
rage, he cut them IN TWO with one stroke Of
his weapon.
Maurice. count Of Sa1ony, the hero of
Fontsney, Inherited the physical vlgor Of his
father, and was especially noted for the SUR
prising muscular power or grip" Of bis
hands. On one OCCASION, needing a cork
screw, he twisted a large iron nail round into
the required shape with his fingers and
opened half q dozen bottles Of wine with it.
Another tine, when stopping 1t q blacksmith
shop to have his horse shod, he picked up a
number Of horseshoes, and with his hands
snapped them in two as readily as if made of
glass, much to the disgust Of the smith.
Tie history is to be believed, Phatyllus, OF
Crotona, ..could jump 9 distance OF ffty-siz
feet. The exercise was practiced at the
Olympic games, and formed part Of the
course of the PentahlOn. Strut, an English
authority ON games and amusements, speaks
Of a Yorkshire jumper named Ireland, whose
powers were marvellous. He was six feet
high, and at the age Of eighteen leaped, with
out the aid of a spring-board, over nine
horses ranged side by side. He cleared 8
cord extending fourteen feet from the ground
with one bound, crushed with his foot q blad-
der suspended at q height Of sixteen feet,
and on another occasion lightly cleared q
large wagon covered with an awning.
Colonel Ironsides, who lived in India early
in this century, relates that be met il his traY-
els an old White-haired man, who, with one
leap, sprang over the back Of an enormous
elephant fanked by six canlels Of the largest
breed. A curious French work, published in
Paris in 1745, entitled ssThe Tracts Toward
the History Of Wonders Performed st Fairs =
mentioned an Englishman who, al the fair Of
ST. German, in 1854, leaped over forty peo-
pie without touching one Of them. In our
own day we are familiar with many remark
able expositions of strength and endurance.