A SECOND SAMSON.

Westport Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1164, 3 April 1874, Page 2

A SECOND SAMSON.

A. remarkably " muscular christian" is at the present time living at Providence, Ehode Island. His muscular powers, according to the Providence Star, are quite as prodigious a3 those possessed by him " who in olden times bore off on his shoulders the gates c/ Gaza." When a youth he was wont to shoulder a barrel of flour with his feet inside of a peck measure. Ou one occasion, on Stevens's wharf, as the result of a banter that he could not shoulder an anchor weighing 5501 bs, he raised it to his shoulders, carried it through another wharf, then ascended the steps of the United States Hotel, bore it in triumph through that establishment, and finally brought it back to Stevens's wharf, where he deposited in the scale for weighing. The whole distance he traversed with the anchor on his back was about 400 yards, and the feat was considered so marvellous that it was placed ou the town record, where it may now be seen by the incredulous. On another occasion a dozen men wero tugging at a hogshead of molasses lying on its bilge, endeavouring to place it on end, when he ordered them aside, and lifted it as thought it were a feather. Though now 57 years old, he is ready at any time on a wager to lift to his shoulder a barrel of flour. This powerful gentleman is at present an " out-and- out teetotaller," but in old days he was much the reverse. He has been known to stand at the bar of the old Park House and drink thirty, two glasses of spirituous liquids " without once turning round." Ou one occasion, in company with a friend, he made a night of it, sitting down to half a barrel of beer, all of which he consumed before the morning 3 r et no person ever saw him iu the gutter, or even stagger from the effects of his mighty potations. It was his boast that in the days of his youth, he could out-drink auy man in Rhode Island.