WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS FOR ALL-COMERS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 538, 15 December 1928, Page 26

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS FOR ALL-COMERS

No Qee Need be Trophy Jess These Exciting Days . . . “immortal” Stylites, Sauisage~Eat= ers, Oyster MarathonDancers ... Barber who Shaved 70 Men in 36 Minntes . . .

NEW champion has ! made the Hall of Fame, t •#tW": ' A new world record ! glistens for the wonder j of mankind. In Bohemia the other day a vigorous young man loosened his belt and ate 101 plum dumplings at one sitting. How vigorous the big event has left Jiinn the cables do not say; nor, perhaps. does he care. Being by present]

| instance. There's a minor sport for ! you. Augustus Comstock had never drawn ; the notice of Mr. Tex Rickard. Yet ; did he allow the well-known buried | feeling to bleach the native hue of - his resolution? Not Gus! Stoutly he j maintained his morale and at last won i fame by drinking 85 cups of coffee | (five gallons) in seven hours and 15 j minutes. He would have pushed his

occupation a student of philosophy, like Mr. Tunney, he must know that lie can henceforth lie back on his laurels and be a celebrity in perpetuity, thought he perform no other ohiuing feat, though he never do another thing for his country. To his last day, wherever dumplings are gorged, he will be cited and admired. "His example will inspire Bohemian youth to prodigious efforts: and, when they carry off the plum of victory in years to come, their grey-haired elders >vill say: “Ah! but the new generation hasn't got the stamina of old Whathisnamejiek! How he could put 'em away, back there in ’2S!”

score up to 100 only that he had begun to run a temperature. You cannot keep a good man down. Two ambitious lads have lately engrossed their names on history’s bright page by staying awake for 72 hours. No longer is any one born to blush unseen. “Shipwreck” Kelly stands on a flagpole seven hours and 13 minutes. Joe Powers, in a. sailor’s swing, hangs from another mast for 16 days. A Mr. Myers consumes 43 five-inch “flapjacks” in rapid succession and tops off with a few feet of bologna, A man in Berlin undertakes to eat a 300-pound pig in ten days, and an American achieves immortality for his supremacy over all other human beings in playing the cornet while treading water. There .are world's records for all. There would be, at least, if the police would only let people alone. They interfered in Chicago not long ' a SO when William Hanson and Ira

The regal, standard heroes, the heavy boxers and the princes of the air, have no corner on glory in a democratic world. There may be something that each of us can do to burst into the news reels and make the public proud of us. Pie eating, for

Goole were about to break the record for staying under water. One was to jump into the lake with a 501 b weight roped to his leg. while the other, whose idea it was, remained on the dock to act as timekeeper. A record having been established, the new world champion was to cut the rope and come up to divide the fruits of renown fiftyfifty with his friend. There would be vaudeville contracts and everything. But you know how the police are. They called it an attempt at murder. The authorities were disagreeable again when the fasting wave overflowed Germany. They discovered that a scandalous number of the hunger artists then on exhibition in glass cases around the country were getting split-pea soup and other extraneous matter through concealed tubes. They were so unsympathetic as to blast a lot of nice new world's records in the making. Some thing of the same police activity occurred at a dance marathon last spring. The affair had gone only a few weeks and was just getting into its stride. Not more than half of the beauty and chivalry gathered there had lost their minds, and their light fantastic toes were swollen no larger than ordinary lemons, when the law stepped in and stopped the party—on the 20th day, to be precise. A longdistance dancer never knows whether he is going to get a cup or a sum : mons.

One Fernando claimed world honours after waltzing continuously like a wind gauge in a hurricane, for six days. In that time he had 1,642 partners, and the band played 1,861 selections. It happened in Berlin. Charles Nicolas, another Continental notable, danced 11 days at a stretch. A Miss Miller holds the black bottom record of 39J miles. A trans-Atlantic dance derby is seriously projected for next summer. Even the gentle musicians have their little day at the carnival of records. A jazz band in Poland marathoned for 33 hours and 10 minutes. The violinist wore out three strings and the leader two pairs of shoes.

There also is Mr. Ernest R. Ackerman, of Plainfield, N.J., widely and enviously known for carryine one and the same umbrella for 48 years; in 110 countries and through a Japanese earthquake he has adhered to it. Plainfield boasts still another record holder. At the country club there Captain Brock Putnam, United States Cavalry, played 252 holes of golf in a day. It does seem that there should be some applause for his caddie, too, but the chronicles overlook him.

Scarcely a human occupation is too laborious to be turned into good fun, with sporting honours for those who endure and excel in it, and effectionate cheers from their fellows. In 1885 Joseph McCann set 6,350 ems of minion type in three hours. They went right on inventing the linotype, but Joseph is still famous. There are cherished records in bricklaying, telegraphing, oyster-open-ing, wood-chopping, corn-husking, hogcalling, cattle-judging, shoe-lasting and shaving. The world’s champion barber of some years ago shaved a man in 13 seconds, and, with an assistant to do the lathering, 70 men in 36 minutes. We are not informed how many of the 71 had to have stitches taken by a surgeon. Envelope-stamping champions have flourished, and geese-pickiug champions. A woman in Paris made 2,000 sandwiches from 22 hams in 19 hours and 40 minutes. AV. S. Walcott ate two quail a day for 30 days, pepsin and gastrine not barred. Charles Pearsall absorbed 60 soft-boiled eggs a day for six days. Every day a record tumbles and a new one flashes in its place, and for a moment a new hero enjoys the spotlight. Or heroine. One day this year a little girl bounced a golf ball 2,710 times.