CANADIAN STRONG MAN

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3724, 1 December 1927, Page 1

CANADIAN STRONG MAN

KILLED HORSE WITH A BLOW. Abraham Lincoln’s feat of lifting a barrel of cider to his knees and holding it there while he drank from the bunghole is the classic of exhibitions of strength in the pioneer days, but there have been others who proved the frontier-bred men were of great strength (says the Pathfinder). Bat .Masterton, the famous marshal of Dodge City, Kansas, in its gun-fighting days, was one of them. One day Masterton tried to pull a drunken cowboy from the saddle to subdue him. The puncher closed down on his pony with a vice-like grip of his knees. The athletic Mr. Masterton gave a mighty tug and down came the pony and rider in a heap. But for sheer brute strength take the case o£ Joe Beaupre, a French Canadian who ranged the buffalo plains and Saskatchewan in the old days. According to tradition, Joe was so strong that he never would fight any man for fear of killing him, and there are plenty of incidents which show that his fears were justified. One day while he was driving a horse hitched to a sledge along a narrow trail the animal baulked, and Beaupre could not budge him. Finally, becoming enraged, the man struck the nervous animal a blow behind the ear which stretched it on the ground dead. Then, loosening the harness, Beaupre picked the dead horse up, tossed it to one side of the trail and went on, pulling the sledge himself. Although possessing such terrible strength, Beaupre was not a giant in stature. He was less than 6ft. tall, but he was broadchested and stocky. Second only to his physical strength was his prowess as an eater, and he would have been famous for his appetite if for nothing else. Beaupre was especially fond of apples, and he could eat an entire box at one sitting and think nothing of it. Once he' was challenged to a one-day eating contest by another man who was champion eater of his part of the country. The challenger, after consuming 371 b. of meat, decided lie had eaten enough to win. Then Joe started. He downed 53 lb.' of buffalo meat, a 6 lb. piece of pork, some lard, and two loaves of bread.