THE CHAMPION FASTER.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1296, 31 December 1886, Page 3

THE CHAMPION FASTER.

Stefa.no Merlatti, the Italian artist who undertook to outdo Sued, by fasting for fifty days, has, so a late telegram informs us, accomplished the task. A Medicae Committee organised by IJr Marechal to ensure the sin-* cerity of the experiment. Merlatti who, during the fifty days’j fast was to content himself with filtered water, says he was only twelve years old when he accomplished his first expert* ment in fasting. It was when he ran away from school. He relates that, having got away into the countiy, he amused himself very well for no less than eleven days without ever think* ing of eating. Indeed, lie maintains he did not even feel the pangs of mmger, but from time to time drank a little water from the brooks. Since then he has, it seems, frequently spent six, eight, or ten days without taking any sort of food. It was not, however, tilt he entered the Fine Art School *at fiu-in that he commenced seriously to train himself to fat ting. To prepare for a fast Merlatti eats very largely for several days. While at Turin he affirms, he all food during eighteen days, aHhe same time all the classes, and acting in fact just as if he was living under normal conditions. His last fast ivas accomplished London, where, he says, he fasted thirty-six days. At the expiration of that time he had lost about twelve kiloglammes—a little less than twenty seven pounds—in weight Merlatti, who, refuses to make any bets on his experiment, says that in undertaking it his sole object is to prove that Suoci’s mysterious liquid is only a mystification, and that the truth is Succi’s stomach is simply like his own—capable of enduring a more or less prolonged fast. Merlatti undertook on the last day of the experiment to take a walk with the doctors watching him from Paris to Bougivol. —English Paper.