CRANKY COMPETITIONS WITH NATURE

NZ Truth, Issue 1143, 27 October 1927, Page 1

CRANKY COMPETITIONS WITH NATURE

Marathon Dancer Collapses In Deathlike Sleep After Effort To Break Latest Jazz Record

THE colored lights painted the huge dancing-hall into a grotesque replica of Dante's inferno. Like spirits, the people flitted about and congregate around the monotonously heaving figure of the whitefaced man whose body lay crumpled m the chair. Gravely a doctor bent and felt the flickering pulse. The ghostly throng, mourner-like, held their breaths and awaited the verdict. "Ahhhwahh -prtha-h -h ! " The noise seemed to come from the very pit. Several of the ghosts shivered. The doctor straightened himself with a sigh. "He's all right," he said, and the slight body on the chair endorsed the

Fighting Morpheus

medico's opinion by emitting another I roof- shaking snore. Billy Heaton, a professional dancer who is well known m New Zealand, had fallen asleep after 53% hours of continuous dancing m the Palais Royal, Sydney, last week. For all those long and weary hours Billy Heaton had shuffled his feet m an attempt to break the jazz marathon record. He had taken his meals while sliding about the floor; grabbed a new lady partner as each one wore out; changed his shoes and socks while standing up, and, like a Briton, had obeyed the jazzy rhythm of orchestra and gramophone. Sitting down m one of th© fiveminute rests, which he was allowed every six hours, he had fallen asleep while trying to change his shoes. It was defeat. But he didn't care. Heaton had gone to heaven — the heaven of sleep, and the doctor calmly opined that he would most likely sleep for about a whole day and a night. Heaton didn't hear what the doctor said, but his accompanying, bodyshaking snore seemed to bear out the medical prophecy. And all the while he was sleeping another marathon competitor was nobly shuffling about and trying to break the same record. It was Billy Preston. And he did it. He danced 71% hours, which is claimed to be the world's record, and for that 71% hours collected £300 and a lot of notoriety. But he paid for it.

For Sixty Hours

Preston is something of an athlete. He has achieved notice as a pugilist m the lightweight division class and has fought some good fights m New Zealand. He says that was easier than marathon jazz. At times the dancers skipped neatly about the floor. Fresh partners seemed to put ginger into the weary men. At other times they merely waddled about and sniffed smelling salts to shake off Morpheus. Quite a crowd looked on. Even Sir Dudley de Chair, Governor of New South Wales, paid a visit to the Palais Royal and spoke a few words of cheer m the dancers' sleepy ears. The dancers mumbled something gamely and threw their legs about. It was great fun for them. Just for doing all that they would get plenty of advertisement and £200 or so. Other men m history and fiction have done much more for a great deal less.

Take a young man m Surrey Hills, Sydney, who claims Sir Bmsley Carr as his father.

This young man created a record m a western town. On a wager he drank ten mugs of beer m 4 minutes, 5 seconds — a notable performance, even for a hardened toper, but more than sensational considering: that George Hay Carr is of temperate habits.

Then there was another marathon dancer. His -name was Alexander, and a little while back a spell-bound Melbourne audience saw him strapped to a girl partner, who danced and helped to hold him on his weary legs

imiimMiMmiimmimmniMimmmimmmiHiimmmimiMmiimiimiiiiiiMinm Multi-colored lights threw variegated colors and shadows on a strange scene at the ghostly hour of midnight, j "Athrahhh-h-h-h ..." . . 1 Someone shivered. On the chair rested the body of a broken man. His face, white and strained, with | flaccid muscles, showed clearly how the poor fellow had been cruelly tortured. "Athrahhh-h-h-h-h-h . . . ah!" | Surely it was the ghost of an evil spirit! A rattling sound. Ugh! It was the ghost of Ned Kelly, rattling the | armor of the departed bushranger! I

I at the end of his 60-odd hours of jazzing. it was probably this noble effort on the part of the modern Alexander-the-Great that inspired the contest between Heatcfri-and Preston; 1 " M:>lVi "' • ■ v Poor Billy Heaton cared not a rap for the fat purse as he was bundled as carefully as possible into a motorcar and taken home. He did not even wake up when his weary frame was thrust into the car. Like the spinning Dervishes of old I and the maddened worshippers of Bac-

chus and Cybele, he had "taken the count."

That's the worst part of these weird and unnatural contests with nature. Nature always wins and knocks her opponents prostrate. Nature is too strong and the subtle opportunist knows how to capitalize her strength. A certain publican keeps a glass m his bar that has never been emptied at the one draught. Anyone who,.can empty it gets his beer for nothing. If he essays and fails, he pays for the full contents and may drink the conquering remainder at his leisure. That huge glass has never been beaten. Nature fights on its side, and the combination is too strong for human constitution.

Quite recently an English inn -keeper underestimated the prowess of his fellow men. Twenty dinners could be eaten for nothing by the stalwart who could consume them one after the othei

Many tried and failed, but a few weeks ago a burly resident faced the array of dishes and set to.

Nearly 20 stone m weight, he munched through plateful after plateful, took a deep breath at the seventeenth and nonchalantly employed a toothpick and a sigh of repletion

>at the end of the twentieth. He had won. Another inn-keeper also suffered a reverse. A large glass on his bar .counter bore a challenge and a prize ~6Y~£'sO for tiie~ma.n who coaia"a"ispose of its contents. The present inn-keeper did not put up the challenge. ' A hundred years and more it had been on that little Kentish bar and through the generations no one had defeated the glass, though many had tried. Three years ago an American

sauntered into the bar. He was hard to impress. The Yank thought hard and guessed he would have a lick at "that there glass." He won, but as he drained the huge receptacle he staggered to the door and fainted. Nature had been defeated, but Nature was outraged. What he suffered he mentioned m sulphurous Yankee cuss-words and his hearers listened and believed him.

America is the home of crazy competitions. Some months ago a young girl managed to get her photograph m all the papers, although she was no beauty. At New Orleans an interested mob looked on at surely one of the strangest competitions the world has ever heard. With working jaws dozens of competitors lined up and stood toe to toe. It was not a very pleasant contest. It was neither more nor less than a spitting competition and the champion railed at the wind that took a few inches off his distance. In America, too, a man sat on aftower, right on the top ibf a very high building. He was determined to sit there and break a record, and as hours drifted by he gazed imperturbably down on a street m which men drifted along- of the size of ants . from his lofty and precarious eyrie.

Strange Contests Often Staged Throughout The Ages and In Many Countries of Wide World

Bvery few hours he rested for five minutes, then climbed up again to his perch, to which he hauled his meals by a rope. He fell off and sustained concussion, of the brain. Fortunately for himself, he fell inwards instead of outwards, or he would NOT have sustained concussion only. Then there were the starving competitions. The well-remembered Paul Freeman went on a hunger-strike while being carted hither and thither across the Pacific after his deportation from Australia.

Freeman was m sympathy with the Russians. The peasants of that country were fasting, too, at that time, but not voluntarily as Freeman did.

Living On Water

When his life was nearly giving a final flicker In his wasted body, thousands of wharf-lumpers m Sydney, stormed the wharf and had Freeman carried to hospital. It all went for nothing. Freeman was killed m Russia not long afterwards. There was another flare of interest m fasting when Upton Sinclair, wellknown novelist, made it known that he would live for a month on nothing more than orange-juice and water. He did it and lived on a diet for a long time afterwards. The diet was necessary. Another man announced that he would do the same m George Street, Sydney. He was watched by hundreds all day and for a good part of the night. Then an inquisitive reporter got busy. His investigations resulted m the "faster" being discovered heartily devouring a fine and sustaining threecourse dinner. That "fast" came to an abrupt end, much to the amusement of the public. In the middle-ages the youths of Rome belabored their bare backs and shoulders with whips m competitions and exorcisms. When offered wine for refreshment they laughed and used it to clean the blood from the congealed strands of their whips. Cranky competitions with Nature as the opponent seem to be a legacy from the old days of Sparta.. No matter how stern on the individual they excite the chuckles of the mob as well as the interest.

In Asylums Now

The English Channel has added its series of incidents to the list. Before the days of moving pictures Captain Webb swam the Channel, only to lose his life when he essayed the descent of the Niagara Falls m a barrel. The brawny Burgess tried the Channel swim afterwards, and though he failed more than once, he finally succeeded, and several have done it since then, including members of the "softer sex." In Paris dozens of cyclists have pedalled round a track on bicycles for eight days and nights m a competition. Some of the competitors whose stamina was weaker than their courage are still m asylums as a result. After fifty hours roller skaters have been taken to hospital suffering from collapse and the injuries caused by their falls when Nature decided to take her toll. Taking it all round, the normal human being has no desire to injure himself m such competitions. He regards them dubiously and prefers to grin at those who would seek fame by such methods. Whether it is food, beer, smoking or athletics, he likes to relish them m moderation. But it takes all sorts to make up the world and succeeding generations will see stranger contests still.