Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 November 1885 — Men of Extraordinary Strength. [ARTICLE]

Men of Extraordinary Strength.

Many stories of strong men and extraordinary feats of strength are to be found in the annals of all countries. Ancient history abounds in them, and the hero of the mediaeval chronicles in this respect was Cwsar Borgia, who, it is said, could fell a bullock by a blow of his fist. One of the most extraordinary athletes that England has produced was Thomas Topham, who was born in London in 1711. The first proof he gave of his prodigious strength was pulling against a horse in Moorfields, and afterward lilting a rolling stone 800 pounds weight, with his hands only, standing in a frame above it, and taking hold of a chain that was fastened to it. He could roll up a pewter dish of seven pounds as easily as another man could a sheet of paper; hold a quart pot at arm’s length and squeeze the sides together like an egg-shell; lift 200 weight with his little finger, and move it gently over his head; he could lift an oak table six feet long, to which half a hundred weight was attached, with his teeth, and, resting it against his knees, hold it in a horizontal position for a considerable time. He raised with one hand a man who weighed twenty-seven stone. His head being laid upon one chair and his feet upon another, four people, fourteen stone each, sat upon his body, which he heaved at pleasure. He could strike a round bar of iron about a yard long and three inches in diameter against his naked arm, and at one stroke bend it like a bow. He lifted two hogsheads of water, heaved his horse over a turnpike gate, and carried the beam of a house across his shoulders as easily as another man would a rifle. Once, finding a watchman asleep in his box in Chiswell street, Moorfields, he took up the box and man h his arms, carried them some distance, and then dropped them over the railings into a place called Tyndall’s Bury-ing-Ground. There was nothing of the giant in his appearance; he was in he’ght about five feet ten,’ well made, ■ but not strikingly so, and walked with a slight limp; but what were hollows under the arms and hams in other men were in him filled up with muscle. He once made a wager that three horses could not draw him from a post, round which he clasped his feet, and it was only by giving them a sudden lash and a twist that the driver succeeded in doing so and in breaking Topham’s thigh at the same time. It is said that there is one cow to every four persons in this country, and if the wells and springs were to fail, some of us would be put on short allowance of milk and cream.