, 1889-10-09
WONDERFUL STRENGTH.
Remarkable Muscular Feats OF Men Of
Ancient and Modern Tfmea

Venetianello, the Italian rope walker,
although a man of short stature, was
celebrated throughout Europa as the
strongest man Of the Sixteenth century.
He daily performed with a hard wood
beam twenty feet long and foot square.
This beam was a heavy load for two men
Of average build, yet this Liliputian pro-
Dizzy would walk about his exhibition
grounds with it standing upon end on
his shoulder, juggler fashion, and shift
it from one shoulder to the other without
the aid of his hands.
Nicholas Klunher, another Sixteenth
century athlete, living at Misnia, Thu
ring, brought from a cellar a cask or
hogshead OF wine containing 252 gallons,
without the aid of pulleys or ropes, and
afterwards deposited 1t in a z
George lie Feur, the German writer.
mentions this extraordinary feat in his
writing, and even say that the afidavits
of persons who witnessed the removal of
the cask were then extant.
81 have seen q man" says Mayolus,
the italian bishop, Sin the town Of Aste,
who, In the presence Of the Marquis of
Pescara, handled a pillar of marble three
feet long and one foot square, which he
cast high in the air, her received it
upon his arms, hen threw 1t up again
as easily as IL it had been a cotton ball"
Cardan writes that he once saw a man
dancing with two full grown men In his
arms, and with one seated upon each
shoulder and the fifth ~clinging around
his neck.
Hermann Maurice, count OF SAKE, of
whom Frederick the Great wrote: 81
have seen the hero of France; a man Of
whom all the generals Of Europe could
learn the art of war" was a man re-
owned for many feats requiring great
muscular strength. While waiting at
the village smithy for his war horse to
DO shod, his favorite pastime was that
Of pulling horseshoes in two and twist
ing of large bars of iron.
Leebelski, the author, who was at Con-
stantinople during the celebration in
honor of the birth of Mahomet, son of.
Amurath, the Turkish emperor, in 1881,
saw a man who lifted with ease a beam
Of hewed wood three feet In diameter,
and SO long and heavy that ten men
were unable to remove it from its resting
place. The same man permitted q stone
of 1900 weight to be placed upon his
chest, while eight men who placed it
there with levers and ropes seated them
selves on the top of 1t. Leebelski adds:
"Of this he made light jest"
Thomas Topham, the wonderful strong
man of the past century, performed
many astonishing feats of strength. He
was born at London in ITO. On the 2sth
day Of May, 1741, when Topham was 81
years Of age. he gave the most wonder
full exhibition when, at Cold Bath Fields,
near London, he lifted three hogsheads
of water, weighing 1886 pounds, in the
presence Of thousands of people.
DR.. Desaguliers, the expert called to
With his fingers he rolled up a very
strong pewter dish In the same manner
and with as much ease as an ordinary
man would q sheet Of paper. He struck
an iron poker, a yard long and three
fourths Of a N inch thick, across his bare
arm, between the elbow and wrist, until
the instrument was bent 80 as to nearly
form a right angle. Taking another
poker Of the same kind across the back
OF his neck, he bent it in the form of a
horseshoe, and hen made 1t straight
with his bare hands. . He broke
a hempen rope two inches Il thickness,
the same with which two horses had
pulled a stone roller weighing 800 pounds,
and afterwards lifted the roller itself
with nothing but his hands and a chain
fastened in a large ring in the side of the
column.
John Bray, a Cornishman, who lived
about the same time, for n small wager
carried six bushels of wheat and the
miller, seated on top Of the sacks, a dis
lance of 500 yards. In our own country
W. b. Curtis, of New York city, lifted
Gin harness) $3.50 pounds Dec. 20, 1858.
H.. Loussing lifted 1884 pounds with the
hands alone, at Cincinnati, in 1880.
Three years later D. L. Dowd, Of Spring
field, Mass, beat the Cincinnati mans
lift 5Sf pounds.
Storms Carpenter, an old man living
at Granite Corners, N. Y, in 1888,
claimed to have shouldered a cannon
weighing 1,400, and to have once car
ried a box of scrap iron weighing 1 300
pounds. at the age of 80 years, in 1888,
he could grasp a 2o-foot railroad rail in
each hand and walk off with them.
At Berthierville, Canada, Oct. /, 1888,
Louis Cyr crept under some trestles upon
which 1855 pounds of pig iron rested
upon heavy timbers and succeeded in
raising that enormous weight more than
two inches from its resting place upon
the t~restles.
At Lynn, Mass, Dec. IS, 1884, c. o.
Breed lifted a barrel of -four 24O times
with n hand in one minute. The total
weight lifted in that sixty seconds
amounted to $1,000 pounds, over twen-
ty-eight tons. 1t is doubtful il this has
eve been excelled. All the above re-
markable facts have been placed on rec
ord.-John W. Wright in st. Louis Re-
public.