FASTING FEATS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 5034, 1 October 1926, Page 2

FASTING FEATS.

STARVATION AS AN OCCUPATION.

LONG PERIODS RECORDED.

The turnstiles clicked. Came another party of sightseers agog with curiosity. The fasting man lit a cigarette and closed hiis eyes. “ ’Ere, wake U p—show a leg,” shouted a fat woman rattling the glasp with the handle of her umbrella. “What do you think we’ve paid our money for ’—to see you go to sleep ?” Fasting for a living surely is dne. of the most fantastic of professions, yet there are at least a dozen men alive to-day who find it Un easy way bU making money. For a lump sum, or a weekly salary, which goes on as long as they are able to do without food, they live on air and cigarette smoke until the human machine breaks down under the strain.

Then, when they are restored to fitness, they go into training and the business, of capitalising starvation bedgins all over again. Doing without food for extensive periods as a cure for disease and illhealth is now quite tv common practice. Lady Fisher, wife of Sir N. F. Warren Fisher, permanent Secretary to the British Treasury, has been living for over four weeks on fruit drinks and. water in which vegetables have been cooked, and Mr C. W. Trelawney Irving, another believer in the Tasting cure, has. confessed that he underwent a fast of 50 days, under similar conditions.

But the amateur fasters, have a long way to go before they riyal, the complete feats of the professionals.

Thousands of sightseers in Paris watched the fasting of Wolly, the Dutchman, who, enclosed in a smajl glass cage, recently attempted to* break all previous records. With a chair and a table for his comfort, several thousands of cigarettes, writing materials a,nd books, he was surrounded night and day by curious crowds anxious to guard against any possibility of being fed. Clad in evening clothes, with a, cigarette between his lips, he lounged back in his chair regardless o>f the staring sensation-mongers'. For the first few days he busied himself with setting down his impressions on paper. Then, when that palled, he began pacing up and down the “cage,” keeping his ; eyes on the floor or the small airholes in the roof, as, if to a.void the sea of curious Faces. To try and break down liis resolution men would bring their luncheons and eat them before his eyes. Wolly would watch the steam curling up from hashes and grills, but h'e never wpvered. Though his mouth was ■watering, he calmly took a sip at his 'cayafe of water and lit another cigarette.

It went on until the eleventh day. Then, suddenly, he leapt to his feet from a deep lethargy and wildly sunk his teeth in his wrist. Officials rushed in and he was taken to hospital. The human machine had broken down.

Doctors are divided a r s to how long a man can live without food 1 . A famous professional faster, Dr. Tanner, once went -40 days without a bite. Succi, another professional, also fasted for 40 days, and lost 341 b 3oz during the period. Subsequently their performances were surpassed by two Italians, Merlatti and Alexander Jacques, both of whom fasted for 50 days>.

Some almost incredible eatle'sp records ...were established by the Irish hunger-strikers in Mountjoy Prison. Aiderman McSweehey, the Lord Mayor of Cork, fasted for 74 days bettor® he died, while another hunger-striker, Joseph Murphy, fasted for 76 days.