PHYSICAL STRENGTH.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 3, Issue 927, 17 November 1881, Page 1 (Supplement)

PHYSICAL STRENGTH.

(Chambers' Journal) Milo, the pride of ancient Cretonn, who could carry ail ox on *liis shoulders and slay one with his fist was an athlete of might; but there have been modern men of nniscle capable ot emulating the feats of Milo; and were trials of strength as popular astrials of speed and skill, we should not have to wait very long before seeing the best performance 011 record'thrown into the shade by sonio musculitr champion as yet unknown to fame, Topham, popularly known as the strong man of Islington, although he failed to draw the bow of a Finland archer two-thirds of its lentgli, justified the title bestowed upon him by rolling up a pewter dish witliliis lingers, bending n kitchen poker round the neck of

an offending hostler and pulling against a horse with his feet against a low wall. With his tceih he could lift a table six feet long having a half hundred weight attached to it; and coming upon a watchman fast asleep in his box he took up box and man, and dropped them over the wall of a burying-ground. j In 1871 "Monsieur Gregorie" claiming to be seventy-one years old, mightily astonished tho good folks of Hereford by carrying seven hundredweight with tliß greatest of ease and by performing certain other extraordinary feats. Twenty years previously lie had performed Milo's feat in a slaughter-house at Witley, in Worcestershire. J t was however no new feat with him he had done it again and again in his young days when travelling with an Italian circus.' An English doctor who knew Gregorie intimately, describes him as logking like an exaggerated example of a muscular study by Fuseli or Hayden having prodigious shoulders and a biceps almost incredible. For all that he was one of the quietest of men, living in constant dread lest he should be

provoked into using liis strength unprofessionally; and afraid to nurso his own baby lest ho should giro it. a fatal squeeze. Joseph Pospischilli was wont to amuse tha Hutigari.m public by holda table in the air, by his hands and teeth while a couple of gipsies danced upon it to a third fiddling. He and one of his brothers would bear upon their shoulders a sort of wooden bridge while a cart full of stones drawn by two horses was driven over it. Falling into bad ways, Joseph wits imprisoned in the fortress of Ofen, and one day volun-

teereil to give the prison inspectors tt specimen of Lis abilities; and permission being accorded, lie so arranged the ' 'governor's heavy mahogany tabic fis to hold it suspended with his teeth for nearly half a minute. Joignery, a French professional acrobat, lately performing at a Berlin theatre, executed the following extraordinary feat:—As he swung bead downwards from a trapeze, to which his ancles were fixed, a horse covered with gay trappings, and begirt with a ..broad leathern surcingle having two . strong loops attached to it/and mounted by a full-grown man, was -brought on ... the central stage, above which Joignery . ..hung suspended. Seizing the loops with his hands, the Frenchman, by slicer muscular strength, lifted horse n ; nd rider some inches off the stage, sustainedjtheir combined weight in the air for some seconds, and then let thorn 'down again as evenly and slowly as he had raised them.

' ■ SO FAMILY. The now vicar's wife:'" Who' lives next door, to. you, Mrs Brown." " The Jugsotis inarm." N.V.W.; " Have . tjiey tiny., family]" Mrs Brown; " Wei! marm, "their* eldest boy lie was hanged ; ; and- their second soil, he's a-doin' .seven-,- years; and their gal the (jldest, leastways she's a-doiug a year: 1 and 'two on their other boysthcy'sma.reform'ty; so. I m:iy say as they 1 ain't got no family to speak Qf.