Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 February 1890 — THE STRONGEST MAN. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE STRONGEST MAN.

A Contest in Which Sampson, Sandow, St. Cyr and Others Compete. Feats of the Aneients Excelled—lifting a Platform with a Weight Equal to Twenty Hen on It—Huge Dumb-Bells Tossed Like Straws. For many weeks a short-neckod man with stout legs and a big biceps, calling himself C. A. Sampson, and spelling it with a “p” 1 to show that he wasn’t related to the other Samson who was so badly tricked by Delilah, has astounded London audiences by his performances with a young fellow who modestly concealed his identity under the imposing name of Cyclops. They have been performing at the Westminster aquarium and sending out all sorts of challenges from the stage to men who labor under the hallucination that they can lift a lon or two with comparative ease. Finally, after Sampson had offered a prize of S6OO to the man who could do the feats done by Cyclops, his pupil, and $2,500 to any better man than himself who might turn up, Eugene Sandow undertook the task. He fairly won the premiums offered by Sampson, but the latter, probably through chagrin, refused to hand over the money. Some highly amusing stories are told about these contests. Sampson, who is not the herculean person in appearance thathis' feats would seem to Imply, is a native of Metz, the son of a French mother and a Spanish father. He speaks seven languages, plays sonatas on the piano with the delicate touch of a girl, and has a biceps measuring fourteen and a half inches in repose and nineteen and a half inches when he wrestles with an iron rod or a wire rope. His chest meusupfisnent is 44 inches, but when he inflates his lungs he adds several inches to this figure.

Sandow is a Pomeranian and was born at Konigsberg twenty-two years ago.- For four years he has been trained by Prof. Attila, one of the best known athletic teachers in Germany. His development is superior to that of Sampson, his chest measurement being 45 i inches and his biceps and forearm each from 1 to B inches larger than those of his rival. He weighs 202 pounds when in condition. Sandow performed in London before the leading sporting men of England, eclipsing Sampson’s most difficult feats, breaking chain bracelets and wire ropes with his forearms and bending .heavy iron rods by striking them across his chest, his arms and his thighs. The bracelet chains which had a resistance of 2,500 pounds were snapped like pipe stems. Among those who witnessed these extraordinary trials of strength were the marquis of Queenberry, Lord de Clifford and Capt. Molesworth, who acted as judges. As the Pomernarian snapped length after length of the steel chain bracelets with his biceps and burst the wire ropes with his nectoral muscles, men rose in the audience and waved bank notes of of big denominations as an invitation to Sampson to beat the white-skinned Sandow if he could, but the formet sulked and declined. Sandow then, after lightly tossing a 150-pound bell in the air a few times to keep his hand in while the judges consulted, performed a trick that caused Sampson to collapse. He placed a chain around his back and neck and proceeded to lift the 150-pound dunjb-bell with his hands. The chain snapped, the Britishers yelled and the referee declared that the Pomeranian bad beaten the Metz man out of sight.

When these two, with Sampson’s incognito comrade, Cyclops, cross the Atlantic, they will meet competitors worthy of their prowess. Louis St Cyr, the “Canadian Heroules,” who has ch alienged - Sampson «» d Sandow, la 26 years of age. and is a man of sa-

perb development, standing 5 feet 101 inches tall and weighing 323 pounds; his flesh and muscles are as hard as oak and he is probably the best weight lifter ever seen in this part, of the globe. Another challenges is Denis Gallagher, a muscular athlete who formerly resided in Buffalo, and whose specialty is Lancashire wrestling. The Buffalo boy doesn’t care to attempt and chain-breaking feat 3 at present, he Drefers to test the strength and skill of the giant 3 at a bout of collar-and elbow wrestling, or a catch-as-catch-can for any amount. r

St. Cry and Gallagher have bot 1 1 appeared in public contests. The f< >.>mer j has put up a 245 pound dumb-bell from | floor to shoulder and from shoulder to ' arms’ length with one hand. On March I 26, 1886, at St. Henri, Canada, he lifted a platform on which seven men were ; seated, and which, also, contained ! seven dumb-bells, and a barrel of flour, the whole making a dead weight of 2,378 pounds. He repeated this feat , six months later. Immediately after this, he placed a barrel of flour upon his shoulder, and followed this up by lifting 3,500 pounds of pig-iron with a plank as the hold. His tremendous development will dvfrarf both Sampson and Sandow and render a contest among these giants decidedly interesting. * The remarkable feats accomplished by these strong men will not suffer by comparison with the vaunted deeds of the ancients. Milo, the old ox-killer, who used to gorge himself on twenty pounds of meat and fifteen pints of wine at -a sitting, may have had a nobler appetite than our modern athletes, who are trained on scientific principles, but he would have shrunk from a bout with St. Cyr, had the latter playfully invited him to lift a platform with twenty men sitting on it. Even Tommy Topham, the famous Englishman who in 1836 lifted three hogsheads of water, bent pokers across bis neck and arms and straightened them out again with his fingers, could hardly have held his own against such a redoubtable champion as this Canadian. The records given above go very far to prove that the modern athlete is in every particular the superior of his pred cessors.

SAMPSON BENDS THE IRON BAR.

ST. CRY WITH 250-POUND DUMB BELL.

SANDOW’S GREATEST FEAT.