Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 September 1878 — A Modern Samson. [ARTICLE]

A Modern Samson.

In the last century there lived in Enland a man named Thomas Topham, who was renowned for his muscular power. He could, with ease, roll upin his fingers the pewter platters which were in fashion at that time, or strike an iron poker upon his arm until he bent it at a right angle. He took a bar of iron, and, placing it behind his neck, holding the two ends in his hands, he brought these ends forward until they met in front, then—a feat which required still more dexterity—he brought it straight again in a similar manner. He is said to have lifted with his teeth, and held out for a time, a wooden table six feet long, and with half a hundred-weight attached to one extremity. These performances are recorded by Dr. Desaguliers, a French scientific writer, who made it his business to investigate the subject personally, while collecting material for one of his works. In 1744, being then 30 years of age, Topham went to Derby and obtained permission of the authorities to display his prowess in public. A s’.age was erected for him, and on this stage, among other performances, he raised three casks filled with water, the total weight of the three being 1,836 pounds, and it will be observed that in doing it he brought the muscles of his neck and shoulders particularly into requisition. The muscular strength of his legs had been affected by an injury he sustained during an incautious experiment. He had undertaken to pull against two horses from the trank of a tree, but, being unscientific in his mode of exertion, and placing himself disadvantageously, he was defeated, and his knee-pan was fractured. It was the opinion of Desaguliers that, had he gone properly to work, Topham might have pulled successfully against fotir horses instead of two. The two-horse feat was accomplished in the last century by a powerful individual, a German named Von Eckeburg. This man sat down on an inclined board, with his feet stretched against fixed support, and two strong horses were unable to remove him from his position. Standing on a platform, like Topham, he sustained the weight of a large cannon round his waist, and, at another time, berding his body in the form of an arch, he allowed a stone of more than a foot in thickness to be broken upon his abdomen by the blow of a sledge-hammer. Of Maurice of Savoy, son of the Elector Augustus 11., it is recorded that his strength of finger was so great that he could snap iron horse-shoes between his fingers like pieces of glass, and, on one occasion, finding himself in want of a cork-screw, he took a long nail, and, with his fingers, twisted it round into the shape of the implement he required. Such are some of the feats which the human body is able to accomplish by muscular exertion.