Year: 1876

Frederick Barnaby was educated at
Harrow, and thence proceeded to Ger
many, where, under private tuition, he
acquired an unusually perfect acquaint-
ance with the French, Italian, and Ger
man languages, and incidentally imbibed
taste for gymnastics. At sixteen he,
the youngest of one hundred and fifty
candidates, passed his examination for
admission to the army, and at the ma
ture age OF seventeen found himself a
cornet in the Royal Horse Guards. AT
this time his breast seems to have been
fred by the noble ambition to become
the strongest man in the world. He
threw himself into the pursuit of muscle
with all the ardor since shown in other
directions, and the cup of his joy must
have been full when precise examina-
tion led to the demonstration of the fact
that his arm measured round the byceps
exactly seventeen inches. His plaything
at Aldershot was dumb-bell weighing
one hundred and seventy pounds, which
he lifted straight out with one hand, and
there was a standing bet of f10 sterling
that no other man in the camp could per-
form the same feat. At the rooms of
the London Fencing Club there is to this
day dumb-bell weighing one hundred
and twenty-five pounds, and Captain
Barnaby is the only member who can
lift it above his head.


There is story told of early barrack
days which brings pleasantly up a rem
iniscence of the Tichborne trial. A
horse pealer arrived at Windsor with a
pair of beautiful little ponies which he
had commanded to show to the Queen.
Before exhibiting them to Her Majesty
he took them to the cavalry barracks for
display to the officers of the Guards.
Some of these, by the way of surprise
led the ponies upstairs into Barnaby's
room, where they were much admired.
But when the time came to take leave an
alarming difficulty presented itself. The
ponies, though they had walked up
stairs, could by no means be induced to
walk down again. The officers were in
fix; the horse dealer was in despair,
when young Barnaby settled the matter
by taking up the ponies, one under each
arm, and, walking down stairs, deposited
them in the barrack yard.


But Cornet Barnaby was as skillful as
he was strong. He was one of the best
amateur boxers of the day, as Tom Pad
dock, Nat Langbam, and Bob Travers
could testify of their own well earned
experience. Moreover, he fenced as well
as he boxed, and the turn of his wrist,
which never failed to disarm swords
man, was known in more than one of the
capitals of Europe. Ten years ago every
body was talking of the wonderful feat
of the young guardsman who undertook
for small wager to hop quarter of
mile, ride a quarter of mile, row
quarter of a mile, and walk quarter of
a mile in quarter of an hour, and who
covered the mile and quarter of dis
tance in ten minutes. and twenty seconds.
Fred. Barnaby had, while barely out of
his teens. realized his bOyish dream and
became the strongest man in the world.
But he had also begun to pay the penalty
of success in the coin of wasted tissues
and failing health. When man finds,
after anxious and varied experiments,
that a water ice is the only form of
nourishment that his stomach will re-
tain, he is driven to the conviction that
there is something wrong and that he
had better see the doctor. The result
of the young athletes visit to the doctor
was that he mournfully laid down the
dumb-bells and the foils, eschewed gym
nastics, and took to travel.